Al-Dawoud Marwan, Thompson Lynda, Al-Khaffaf Haytham
East Lancashire Healthcare Trust, Royal Blackburn Hospital.
Br J Nurs. 2009;18(8):495-7. doi: 10.12968/bjon.2009.18.8.41813.
Although the majority of patients with intermittent claudication are stable, those who develop complications can quickly deteriorate and need a rapid response. Because the majority of issues dealt with at a routine follow-up visit are in the form of a discussion, rely on symptoms and do not require an examination, it was considered appropriate to assess if a telephone follow-up service could replace these face-to-face meetings at the authors hospital. This article discusses an evaluation, the objective of which was to pilot a nurse-led telephone follow-up system for claudicant patients in terms of feasibility, patient satisfaction and impact on out-patient vascular surgery practice. This system would maintain supervision of vascular patients to enable fast-tracking into the out-patient clinic/hospital if their symptoms deteriorated. The effectiveness of the nurse-led follow up was assessed by a retrospective analysis of the out-patient clinic attendances before and after introduction of the nurse follow-up service. Attendances decreased, leading the authors to conclude that a structured follow-up system using a telephone clinic run by a skilled and specialized vascular nurse provides excellent support and effective surveillance in patients with intermittent claudication.
虽然大多数间歇性跛行患者病情稳定，但出现并发症的患者可能会迅速恶化，需要快速应对。由于常规随访中处理的大多数问题都是以讨论的形式进行，依赖症状且无需检查，因此作者所在医院评估电话随访服务是否可以取代这些面对面的会诊被认为是合适的。本文讨论了一项评估，其目的是就可行性、患者满意度以及对门诊血管外科实践的影响，试行由护士主导的针对跛行患者的电话随访系统。该系统将对血管疾病患者进行监测，以便在其症状恶化时能够快速安排至门诊/医院就诊。通过对引入护士随访服务前后门诊就诊情况的回顾性分析，评估由护士主导的随访的有效性。就诊人数减少，这使作者得出结论，即使用由经验丰富且专业的血管护士运营的电话诊所的结构化随访系统，可为间歇性跛行患者提供出色的支持和有效的监测。
