do triage nurses correctly estimate urgency?
GROUND: In recent years, there has been a growth in the use of triage nurses to decrease general practitioner (GP) workloads and increase the efficiency of telephone triage. The actual safety of decisions made by triage nurses has not yet been assessed. OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether triage nurses accurately estimate the urgency level of health complaints when using the national telephone guidelines, and to examine the relationship between the performance of triage nurses and their education and training. Method: A cross-sectional, multicentre, observational study employing five mystery (simulated) patients who telephoned triage nurses in four GP cooperatives. The mystery patients played standardised roles. Each role had one of four urgency levels as determined by experts. The triage nurses called were asked to estimate the level of urgency after the contact. This level of urgency was compared with a gold standard. RESULTS: Triage nurses estimated the level of urgency of 69% of the
