Development and testing of the KERNset:an instrument to assess the quality of telephone triage in out-of-hours primary care services

Background: Telephone triage is a core but vulnerable part of the care process at out-of-hours general practitioner (GP) cooperatives. In the Netherlands, different instruments have been used for assessing the quality of telephone triage. These instruments focussed mainly on communicational aspects, and less on the medical quality of triage decisions. Our aim was to develop and test a minimum set of items to assess the quality of telephone triage. Methods: A national survey among all GP cooperatives in the Netherlands was performed to examine the most important aspects of telephone triage. Nex... Mehr ...