CAN YOU HOLD PLEASE - HOW INTERNAL-MEDICINE RESIDENTS DEAL WITH PATIENT TELEPHONE CALLS

Little is known about the mechanisms used in internal medicine residen cy programs to handle patient telephone calls. To address this, a surv ey of internal medicine residents was conducted at 10 different intern al medicine residency programs. The response rate was 76% (N = 388). A pproximately 90% of the residents handled patient telephone calls. The residents saw a mean of 7 patients per week in clinic (standard devia tion +/- 2) and received an average of 2 patient calls daily (standard deviation +/- 2). The mean number of patient calls received each nigh t on-call was 3 (standard deviation +/- 6) and on weekend call days, a n average of 4 patient calls were received (standard deviation +/- 8). Internal medicine residents reported spending an average of 7 minutes per call talking to the patient (standard deviation +/- 5) and 8 minu tes in follow-up activities (standard deviation +/- 6). Residents repo rted documenting calls less than 35% of the time. Residents disagreed with the statements ''I am very satisfied with my patient telephone ca ll system'' and ''My patients are very satisfied with my telephone cal l system.'' Most internal medicine residents handle a significant amou nt of patient telephone calls, and the systems for handling these call s are less than satisfactory. The procedures used to manage patient ca lls and the training for this component of practice should be improved .