Introduction Telephone triage services (TTS) play an increasing role in the delivery of healthcare. The objective of this study was to characterize the adult users of a TTS for non-critical emergencies, describe the types of advice given and their subsequent observation, and assess the influence of TTS on the use of the healthcare system in a sanitary region of Switzerland. Methods Data from a TTS based in the French part of Switzerland were analyzed. This service consists of a medical contact center for non-critical emergencies, with trained nurses available 24/7. A random selection of 2,034 adult calls was performed between July and December 2018. Research students contacted users 2 to 4 weeks after the initial call and assessed sociodemographic and clinical data, as well as the impact of the advice received on the use of the healthcare system. Results A sample of 412 users was included in the analyses. The average age was 49.0 (SD 20.4) years; 68.5% were women and 72.8% of Swiss origin. The two main recommendations provided by nurses were to consult the emergency department (ED) (44.6%, n = 184) and to contact a physician on duty (33.2%, n = 137). The majority of users followed the advice given by the nurses (substantial agreement [k = 0.79] with consulting the ED and perfect agreement [k = 0.87] with contacting a physician on duty). We calculated that calling the TTS could decrease the intention to visit the ED by 28.1%. Conclusion TTS for non-critical emergencies have the potential to decrease the use of ED services.

BACKGROUND: Telephone triage services (TTS) play an increasing role in the delivery of healthcare. The objective of this study was to characterize the users of a TTS for non-critical emergencies, describe the types of advice given and their subsequent observation, and assess the influence of TTS on the use of the healthcare system in a sanitary region of Switzerland.METHOD: Data from a TTS based in the French part of Switzerland will be analyzed. This service consists of a medical contact center for non-critical emergencies, with trained nurses available 24/7. We created a questionnaire based on literature search and inspired by other questionnaire to assess these different points. All calls for medical complaints from adults (people aged > 18 years old) during a 3 months period (from July 2018 to September 2018) will be listed. 20 calls per day will be randomly selected with the software STATA. Research students will contact users 2 to 4 weeks after the initial call to reach a total sample of 430 users. In this descriptive study, the main outcome is to evaluate if the call to TTS change the attitude of care (dichotmomous variable yes/no). We expected a change in 20% of users of CTMG (p = 0.2) with a 99% confidence interval of (15% -25%). Using the general formula ?=??/22?(1−?)/?2 we find n = 425, being e=0.05 the half width of the desired confidence interval, ?=0.01 the 1's complement of the confidence level (99%), and ??/2 the (1−?/2) quantile of the standard normal distribution (?=0.01 → ??/2 =2.58). We will use STATA15.0 to perform the statistical analyses.