ClearTriage has hundreds of handouts written by Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Thompson at a 6th grade reading level. And these handouts can be used to reinforce the care advice that you have discussed on the call. And that can be really effective at helping increase compliance with the care advice and helping to reduce callbacks.
So let's see how that works. In this call, the mom has called because Lauren has been vomiting and has diarrhea. So we've gone through the triage. and it's appropriate for the mom to take care of Lauren at home.
We've gone through a variety of care advice, including the reasons to call back. But now we want to send a handout. The Handouts tab here shows the number of handouts that are associated with that protocol.
Not all protocols have handouts, but most of them do. If I click on the Handouts tab, I can then choose a handout. In this case, I'll go ahead and choose the Vomiting on Baby Formula handout. I can preview the handout.
And that will open it up and let me see the handout. So the handouts will have background information about the symptom. In this case, including information about dehydration and how to understand if your child is becoming dehydrated. Causes of vomiting with diarrhea. And then it has the care advice.
So in this case, it's going to talk about gradually introducing small amounts of liquids every five minutes. Increasing that after four hours and increasing that again after eight hours. It's going to talk about solid foods, sleep, so on, and then also reinforcing those reasons to call back.
If that's the handout I want, I can go back to ClearTriage, and I can email or text the handout directly to the caller, or I can copy a link to that handout and put that link in the patient portal or in a secure message. So let's see how all three of those work. If I'm going to email the handout, I'll get the caller's email address.
And then I will get the patient's consent. So I'll tell the mom that I'm going to send this handout. It'll be an attachment in the email.
There won't be a password on the handout. So if someone gains access to her email or intercepts the email along the way, they'll be able to see this handout. And I'll ask if she's okay with me sending it that way.
If so, I will check that I've gained consent from her. And I will send that email. The handout is sent as a PDF attachment to the email.
So let's see what that email looks like from the caller side. In the email program here, I see there's an email that came from Main Street Family Medicine. I can click on that email and it says here's the care information you requested and has information about not replying to this email. You can see that none of the assessment that the nurse typed is in the email.
The positive triage question. that the nurse typed isn't there. The specific care advice isn't there. This is a general informational handout that is sent to the caller.
I see the PDF here. I can click on it and there is the PDF handout with the information that we looked at previously. If I want to text the message, I will click on text and I'll type in the phone number.
I'll again get consent to send the handout to their phone. and then I will send the text. Sending the handout by email or text is a very effective way to get it to the caller because the caller is either sick themselves or is caring for someone who is sick.
It's a nice direct way to get that handout to them. The handout will say that it's from your organization, but if they try and reply to the email or reply to the text or call that number, it will say that this is not monitored if it's an emergency call 9-1-1, otherwise contact your provider. However, if you don't want to send the handout by email or text, you can also create a link to that handout.
I can copy that link, and then I can go to my patient portal, and I can write a message to the caller, and I can paste that link into the message so that when they get the message, they'll be able to click on that and go to the handout. In some cases, they may need to copy the link and paste it into a browser. Also, if I have open notes, if I'm sharing my call notes in my patient's chart with my patient, that link that I've copied will show up in the note about the telephone call.
When I'm done, I press copy. And when I go to my EMR, in this case, eClinicalWorks, and choose paste, I have the normal information in any clear triage call, the assessment, the protocol that was used, and so on. But at the bottom, I have a note that the handout was sent, usually to one place, but in this case I have sent it three times. to the mom at ClearTriage email, to that phone number, and also I've shared that link.
Again, the latter would be if this telephone counter, if the patient's chart was open to the patient, they'd be able to see this and click on that or copy it into a browser. Those are different ways you can send a care advice handout to a patient as part of the triage call.