IntellaTriage Insights: Our Blog

UNC Continuing Care Services, a prominent North Carolina home health and hospice organization, struggled with maintaining and recruiting nurses until they began to think about their after-hours triage strategy in an entirely new way.

Nurse retention is essential to maintaining a stable and quality healthcare workforce. While workload, work environment, and professional development opportunities can significantly impact nurse retention, administrators can effectively support nurse work-life balance, reduce burnout, and improve retention by outsourcing triage along with other retention strategies.

The current environment of staffing shortage plus hospice industry growth forces organizations to think outside the box for a nurse staffing solution. External resources such as outsourced triage can help growing hospice organizations retain nurses, repurpose resources, and optimize operations.

Guest writer Erin Whalen of Compassionate Coaching offers self-awareness and self-care strategies for your after-hours nursing staff. People who are arguably doing the most important work – nurses at the bedside of the dying – don’t have a clear separation between their workday ending and their non-work life beginning. This type of workload can lead to burnout, staff retention issues, and a steep decline in team morale.

Practically speaking, the best way to improve your patients’ experience and thus your CAHPS scores is by putting the patient or caregiver in touch with a registered nurse every chance you get.

At IntellaTriage, 2022 passed quickly in a whirlwind of company growth, professional successes, and nurse-first triage. Above all other indicators of success this year, IntellaTriage has delivered on our promise: to improve the lives of nurses and patients. Our team strives daily to embody our company mission and is proud to know that we do so every day. To share a recent team member’s quote: “It makes me proud to say I work for IntellaTriage and to know I have an impact on the lives of so many patients, families, and nurses.” Join us for a quick recap of all we’ve accomplished in 2022 and the ripple effects of our essential work:

In a recent webinar, Dr. Stacy Cottingham of Coastal Hospice kindly shared a deeper dive into how their plan to reduce medication refill calls after hours produced such impressive results. Learn how using the data provided on the IntellaTriage service dashboard enabled the Coastal team to reduce medication refill calls. And how driving this initiative increased nurse satisfaction, enhanced the timeliness of care, and improved financial performance.

75% of the week occurs after you shut your agency doors, impacting multiple facets of your operations – especially your workforce. Learn how CommonSpirit Health at Home optimized their after-hours with after-hours action plans that included outsourcing triage to IntellaTriage. 

While the staffing crisis continues to grab the spotlight, we must also work to keep patient experience in the light and find a way to address both issues simultaneously. Learn how IntellaTriage nurse-based triage can improve the patient experience and reduce nurse burnout.

For most hospice and home health agencies, outsourcing a nurse-based triage service is more cost-effective and efficient than handling after-hours calls in-house. At IntellaTriage, we realize that hospice and home health providers won’t trust your nurse-based triage care to just anyone. So here is a sneak peek into what our triage nurses do, who they are, and why they are so successful in this space. 

We spent time with Ashley Calloway, IntellaTriage Director of Clinical Operations, exploring creative ways to fill after-hours scheduling without compromising care or nurse sanity. We know hospice and home health agencies struggle to fill those on-call shifts while keeping their nursing staff happy, engaged, and rested enough to best care for patients.

Several years into the pandemic and the ongoing staffing crisis, nurse burnout concerns still plague hospice and home health agencies. Their nursing staff continue to feel the pinch of heavy workloads and understaffing. Hospice and home health agencies must find a way to support fewer nurses with fewer resources. To help reduce burnout, agencies can outsource after-hours calls.

When it comes down to it, the main decider in how you choose between nurse-based triage and other after-hours models lies in the patient experience. A nurse-first after-hours triage provider connects your patients with a live caregiver at every encounter.

Over five months, utilizing the improved protocols, education, ongoing tracking, and monthly meetings with IntellaTriage, Coastal Hospice realized over 40% reduction of after-hours medication call volume.

Regardless of how your agency operates your internal after-hours triage, appropriately managing these calls requires skills that differ from bedside nursing. Consider these best practices if your agency manages your after-hours call internally. 

Understanding the different options for after-hours care models and choosing the model that best fits your agency’s goals can significantly impact overall patient satisfaction, nurse burnout, and your bottom line.

“We started looking at a triage outsourcing company and then talked to our staff nurses: “What would you think if we did this?” There was a resounding: Oh wow, you mean I can sleep at night?!”