The Guidelines

For more than 30 years, Schmitt-Thompson’s rigorously reviewed nurse triage content has set the standard for telephone triage care.

Schmitt-Thompson Clinical Content’s nurse triage guidelines offer world-class decision support to help nurses give high-quality healthcare advice. Our guidelines are used by thousands of practices, clinics, hospitals, and managed-care call centers across the United States. We strive to create the highest quality and most current triage protocols available through our rigorous review and update process. Our guidelines drive patient safety, care quality, and clinical efficiency.

Our Guideline Sets

Incorporating the Schmitt-Thompson protocols strengthens your organization’s clinical decision support for triage nurses. We have two primary guideline sets:

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After Hours

Used by 95% of after-hours and managed-care call centers in North America

Covers 99+% of all symptom calls

397 adult topics

348 pediatric topics

Designed to support after-hours and 24/7 call centers

Samples

Adult Topic: Abdominal Pain - Male

Pediatric Topic: Earache

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Office Hours

Used by 10,000+ practices and clinics, based on the popular Office Hours books, plus over 100 additional protocols

234 adult topics

250 pediatric topics

Condensed structure and format to maximize efficiency

Samples

Adult Topic: Ankle Foot Injury

Pediatric Topic: Jaundice - Newborn

What do the guidelines include?

  • Adult Care Advice Topics

  • A Symptom Definition

  • Initial Assessment Questions

  • Triage Assessment Questions

  • Targeted Care Advice*

  • Home Care Advice

  • Background Information

  • First Aid (if appropriate)

  • References

  • Search Words

  • Pediatric Care Advice Handouts

* Only available with After Hours content. Targeted Care Advice is advice relevant to the patient’s symptoms, acuity and corresponding disposition. By mapping care advice at the triage question level, rather than the guideline level, the nurses are more efficient as they don’t have to search for appropriate advice statements. We’ve already provided that short list of appropriate advice statements.


 

What are common applications for the guidelines?

Triage Solution Creators

EMRs: Incorporating a triage function or module to your EMR/EHR, CRM or Patient Engagement platform extends documentation to include telephone interactions and supports capturing valuable pre-visit information, which makes the physician-patient encounter efficient and documentation more complete. Use of telephone triage guidelines reduces risk through supporting consistent handling of calls.

Triage Applications: STCC content can be incorporated into software that handles your triage calls to leverage the gold standard of nurse triage in your workflow.

Triage Providers

Call Centers: Hospitals and health systems use system-wide solutions to centralize patient records and standardize decision support. Our protocols support system-wide uniformity in telephone triage and consistent care advice within these same systems.

Physician Offices and Clinics: Providers rely on our Office and After Hours protocols to support and standardize decision making in their practice/clinic.

 

“Nurses across the world utilize these protocols on a daily basis and are able to provide patients and families with the highest quality of evidence-based advice. I have been practicing, teaching and writing about telehealth for nearly 25 years and I have deep appreciation for the tools that you have developed to support nursing practice every day. Your work has saved lives!”

Kathryn K, DNP, RN-BC, C-TNP, Clinical Manager in La Crosse, Wisconsin

Yet another example of the efficient response from your team, and how the feedback from our organization is heard and often used to make change.

Elizabeth, BSN, RN; Professional Practice Nurse Lead, MN

“Thanks for always giving the RNs the best clinical resources! Schmitt and Thompson are always so proactive.  There’d be no remote nurse triage without you!”

Gina T., MSN, RNC-TNP, VP Strategic Partnerships, Keona Health