SymptomScreen is often selected by call centers as a replacement for their red flag list (or critical symptom list or trigger word list). This article explores the reasons call centers are making this change and highlights what makes SymptomScreen a better tool than a red flag list.
Active Data Gathering vs. Passive Listening
A red flag list contains high-priority symptoms, the non-clinical staff listen to see if the caller mentions or reports any of these symptoms during the call. But the caller likely doesn’t know which factors in their condition are important and which aren’t, so significant time can be wasted while the non-clinical agent just listens.
SymptomScreen provides three to six yes/no questions for each symptom reported. This allows your non-clinical staff to gather important data about each symptom, data that the caller might not have realized was important. This can identify complications of low priority symptoms that might indicate something serious, and rule out the dangerous complications of an ambiguous symptom that might otherwise result in an unnecessary warm transfer to triage.
Multiple Symptoms
Patients often experience and report more than one symptom. Sometimes the combination of symptoms can increase the urgency of the call compared to each individual symptom on its own. This is extremely difficult to capture in a red flag list without making the list unmanageable. And it’s not an unusual occurrence – 41% of calls taken with SymptomScreen use more than one symptom.
SymptomScreen accepts multiple symptoms, allowing the agent to add every symptom the caller is reporting. It intelligently combines the questions from each of those symptoms to create a customized set of questions that the agent then uses to gather data and prioritize that specific call. This all happens without any clinical decision making required by the agent, keeping them from trying to determine which symptom is the most important.
Used on Every Call
A red flag list is usually a PDF or Word document that agents are expected to reference during each call. However, relying on a printed list or document is highly impractical, if not impossible. As a result, agents often “train” on the list and rely on memory during calls. Yet, as human beings, they will likely forget certain symptoms and trigger words on some calls.
Organizations that adopt SymptomScreen have their agents use it on every single call, making it a standard part of their process for handling symptom-based calls. It becomes part of their pattern for taking calls, ensuring consistency and enhancing safety. This can be especially valuable when updating prioritization logic, a task that is extremely challenging if agents rely on a memorized red flag list. With SymptomScreen, the new prioritization logic is automatically presented for the agent to use.
Documentation
Agents relying on a red flag list manually enter call documentation, leading to wide discrepancies in what the documentation contains. SymptomScreen automatically generates clear, concise documentation that includes the reported symptom(s), the outcome of the call, the reason for that outcome, and optionally, any conditions that the caller denied.
Flexible Symptom Identification
A red flag list typically contains only one version of the symptom without any keywords or alternative words, leaving it up to the agent to identify the matching symptom from synonyms that the caller might use in describing the issue. For instance, many red flag lists include “abdominal pain,” but a caller might describe it as “stomach pain,” “belly pain,” or even say “my gut hurts.” With SymptomScreen, any of these descriptions will prompt the tool to display “Abdominal Pain” for the agent to select.
To even further reduce confusion, SymptomScreen also features Alternative Titles for certain guides. For example, the “Dizziness” guide is meant to be used for “lightheaded”. If an agent searches for “lightheaded” but only sees “dizziness,” they might assume no suitable guide exists. With the alternative title in place, searching for “lightheaded” will display “Dizziness (Lightheaded)” in the results, ensuring the agent knows it is the appropriate guide.
Less Training Required
Training non-clinical staff to use a red flag list involves teaching them the clinical meaning of each symptom on the list and continually reinforcing this knowledge when symptoms are misidentified. Additionally, they must be trained on the appropriate actions to take for each high-priority symptom on the list.
In contrast, training for SymptomScreen is straightforward: add all of the patient’s symptoms to the screening, ask the prompted questions, select “Yes” if the caller says yes or maybe, and follow the on-screen instructions. It’s easy to learn, simple to use, and eliminates the risk for clinical decision-making. This is critical in a position that often has high turnover.
Enable Improvements in Screening
The goal of screening in a call center is to minimize unnecessary high-priority calls that consume expensive or limited resources while ensuring truly high-priority calls are accurately identified. Continually improving this process is essential for optimizing patient safety and effective use of resources. However, making these improvements with a red flag list can be difficult. How do you determine which symptoms are driving high-priority resource usage? How do you implement changes for your staff and measure their impact effectively?
SymptomScreen simplifies the quality improvement (QI) process by providing detailed reports to show you which symptoms are resulting in high-priority outcomes. It can even show you which specific questions in those guides are resulting in those outcomes! If the current prioritization logic isn’t meeting your goals, you can easily adjust the questions. Or if something important is being missed, you can add a new question. SymptomScreen promotes consistent screening, reporting gives you the data to make informed improvements to that screening.
SymptomScreen, A Powerful Replacement for a Red Flag List
We hope this article gives you a better understanding of the benefits SymptomScreen can provide to your call center and your patients. Review our website or schedule a demo to learn more, or start a 30-day free trial to see how SymptomScreen can work for you.