title: Healthline: do primary care doctors agree with the advice?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess agreement between the advice to symptomatic callers to Healthline, and that advised by primary care doctors given the same clinical information, and thus to assess the safety of Healthline advice.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ninety records of symptomatic calls to Healthline were examined by three primary care specialists, blinded to the actual advice given. They independently recorded what they would have advised, and their advice was compared with that actually given by the Healthline nurse guided by Care Enhance Call Centre software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Variation among the three doctors was greater than that between the median doctor and Healthline. In 82% of cases, the median doctor triaged to an endpoint close to (or lower than) Healthline. In all but one of the remainder, at least one doctor thought there was no risk to the patient (i.e. in 99% of cases). Review of that case indicated nurse error and the guideline itself was judged to be safe.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  New Zealand primary care specialists regarded the Care Enhance Call Centre decision support software used by Healthline as clinically safe.
authors.affiliation: Healthline, Wellington, New Zealand. ian.stgeorge@healthline.co.nz
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: St George
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cullen
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Branney
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D015277:Hotlines; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D012984:Software; D014218:Triage / Q000379:methods*