Nurse Triage and Advice Line

Helping Physicians Better Serve their Patients

Are you a physician looking for help with answering patient advice phone calls?  UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s Nurse Triage and Advice Line is here to help. Registered nurses staff our telephone triage advice line for patients from newborns to geriatric. Whether it’s after-hours when your office is closed or during heavy call volume times during normal office hours, our specially-trained staff is available to answer phone calls made to your office from families seeking urgent medical advice.

This service originated in 1996 as an extension of pediatricians’ practices and is based administratively at Children’s Hospital. Since May 2011, it has served as the triage and advice center for the UPMC Health Plan Advice Line. More than 50,000 patients per year have been served by the Advice Center since that time. It covers about 1.5 million pediatric and adult patients.

A total of 17 registered nurses provide evening, night, and weekend call coverage for pediatric primary care physicians and their patients with an average call-back time of 20 minutes.

The center, which operates 24/7, has two medical directors: one for adult patients and one for pediatric.

The center uses TriageLogic software, and Schmitt-Thompson evidence-based nurse triage protocols are built into the program. Basic information provided by the answering service initiates an algorithm prioritization level for the RN.

Practice- and patient-specific information interfaces with the system, and an electronic summary report is sent to the referring practice and health plan. All callers are surveyed electronically, with a satisfaction rating of more than 98 percent.

Contact Us

To learn more about the Nurse Triage & Advice Line, contact Robin Fortunato.