Dennise Geiger Discusses Telephone Triage in Cancer Care

Dennise Geiger, RN, Regional Cancer Care Associates, Central Jersey Division, discusses difficulties nurses face when using telephone triage, and the plan that was developed to better streamline the process.

Geiger conducted a study on managing chemotherapy side effects through telephone triage and found that there are some difficulties assessing a patient over the phone, where the nurse cannot see the patient’s symptoms. So, Geiger and her team created an algorithm of questions to more clearly see what the patient is going through and what next steps for treatment should be.