Irene Eriksson
Senior Lecturer in Nursing
This is a PhD-student project, funded by the University of Skövde. The project studies factors associated with parent’s adherence to the assessment, guidance and care advice made by 1177 Vårdguiden (VPT), Vårdguiden telephone services is a national telephone and online care guide, and how this correlates with clinical assessments made at children’s emergency rooms.
Rising demand for access to health care
Care need assessment in the form of a telephone interviews has, in recent years, expanded and evolved to meet an increasing demand for health care accessibility. Every year approximately 5 million calls are made to 1177 VPT. The responding nurse makes an assessment, gives self-care advice and if needed refers the patient to the appropriate level of care. Telephone consulting is regarded as challenging and requires highly competent nurses. A large proportion of the calls to 1177 VPT comes from parents seeking advice concerning their children.
Increase in frequency of attendance at emergency rooms
The number patients who present to emergency rooms is rising globally and the most common patient is a child accompanied by parents or a legal guardian. Estimates indicate that approximately 40-58 % of the children who present to an emergency room suffer from mild and non-urgent conditions. The objective in this project is to describe and analyse data regarding parent’s adherence to 1177 VPT’s assessment and advice and how this correlates to assessments made at children’s emergency rooms and in relation to health care expenditure.
-Results from this project will be disseminated both nationally and internationally. The objective is to contribute to improvements in the quality of health care as well as to satisfy the public’s needs for health care availability says Irene Eriksson, project leader for the 1177 VPT project.
