Telephone Nursing, telephone triage or telephone advice is seen in a variety of nursing settings including: physician practices, health care maintenance organizations, hospitals and clinics, school and university health programs, managed care companies and organized call centers devoted to health information and education. In fact, nurses may need to perform varying amounts of telephone triage in almost every specialty area.

Registered Nurses on the telephone speak directly to patients, clients or consumers, assisting them in determining the urgency of care needed, referring to or scheduling appointments with physicians, and providing health information and advice to the caller.

Formal (organized) telephone triage services generally started as Marketing sponsored programs designed to provide general health information services to a community while making callers aware of hospital services and physicians.

Today, triage services (or telephone nursing services) are an effective response to the rapid changes in health care. They provide services such as: the management of demand for health services, precertification systems for insurance companies, support for managed care services, preventative health information for the consumer, education or counseling to a selected population, and After Hours programs for physicians (often for Family Practitioners and Pediatricians). In addition, nurse consultation programs are providing ongoing communication with high risk populations in the home, such as those patients with chronic conditions and debilitating illnesses.

There are hundreds of organized "call centers" today devoted exclusively to telephone health services, staffed by specially trained Registered Nurses. Most large call centers are computerized and use medically approved guidelines or protocols to help in decision-making. Triage Nursing is a symptom-based practice and does NOT include offering a medical diagnosis. Telenurses use the nursing process and are proud to be part of a growing nursing specialty.

Because of the diversity of "triage services", it has been suggested that the term telephone triage be expanded to telephone nursing services or telephone nursing consultation or even telenuring to encompass all health related activities performed over the telephone. You may also hear the specialty referred to as advice nursing, telehealth, and telecare.

All nurses who give advice over the telephone can benefit from the 'lessons learned' by formal call centers, including: telephone assessment techniques, awareness of high risk populations and calls, good documentation procedures, and legal issues.