Outgoing Telephone Calls Research Articles

Reading room assistants to reduce workload and interruptions of radiology residents during on-call hours: Initial evaluation

PurposeTo determine how much timesaving and reduction of interruptions reading room assistants can provide by taking over non-image interpretation tasks (NITs) from radiology residents during on-call hours. MethodsReading room assistants are medical students who were trained to take over NITs from radiology residents (e.g. answering telephone calls, administrative tasks and logistics) to reduce residents’ workload during on-call hours. Reading room assistants’ and residents’ activities were tracked during 6 weekend dayshifts in a tertiary care academic center (with more than 2.5 million inhabitants in its catchment area) between 10 a.m. and 5p.m. (7-hour shift, 420 min), and time spent on each activity was recorded. ResultsReading room assistants spent the most time on the following timesaving activities for residents: answering incoming (41 min, 19%) and outgoing telephone calls (35 min, 16%), ultrasound machine related activities (19 min, 9%) and paramedical assistance such as supporting residents during ultrasound guided procedures and with patients (17 min, 8%). Reading room assistants saved 132 min of residents’ time by taking over NITs while also spending circa 31 min consulting the resident, resulting in a net timesaving of 101 min (24%) during a 7-hour shift. The reading room assistants also prevented residents from being interrupted, at a mean of 18 times during the 7-hour shift. ConclusionThis study shows that the implementation of reading room assistants to radiology on-call hours could provide a timesaving for residents and also reduce the number of times residents are being interrupted during their work.

Exploitation of Outgoing and Incoming Telephone Calls in the Context of Circadian Rhythms of Social Activity Among Elderly People: Observational Descriptive Study.

BackgroundIn the elderly population, analysis of the circadian rhythms of social activity may help in supervising homebound disabled and chronically ill populations. Circadian rhythms are monitored over time to determine, for example, the stability of the organization of daily social activity rhythms and the occurrence of particular desynchronizations in the way older adults act and react socially during the day. Recently, analysis of telephone call detail records has led to the possibility of determining circadian rhythms of social activity in an objective unobtrusive way for young patients from their outgoing telephone calls. At this stage, however, the analysis of incoming call rhythms and the comparison of their organization with respect to outgoing calls remains to be performed in underinvestigated populations (in particular, older populations).ObjectiveThis study investigated the persistence and synchronization of circadian rhythms in telephone communication by older adults.MethodsThe study used a longitudinal 12-month data set combining call detail records and questionnaire data from 26 volunteers aged 70 years or more to determine the existence of persistent and synchronized circadian rhythms in their telephone communications. The study worked with the following four specific telecommunication parameters: (1) recipient of the telephone call (alter), (2) time at which the call began, (3) duration of the call, and (4) direction of the call. We focused on the following two issues: (1) the existence of persistent circadian rhythms of outgoing and incoming telephone calls in the older population and (2) synchronization with circadian rhythms in the way the older population places and responds to telephone calls.ResultsThe results showed that older adults have their own specific circadian rhythms for placing telephone calls and receiving telephone calls. These rhythms are partly structured by the way in which older adults allocate their communication time over the day. In addition, despite minor differences between circadian rhythms for outgoing and incoming calls, our analysis suggests the two rhythms could be synchronized.ConclusionsThese results suggest the existence of potential persistent and synchronized circadian rhythms in the outgoing and incoming telephone activities of older adults.

From reactive to proactive basic palliative hospital care. Evaluation of one-nurse-based telephone follow-up and bedside consultation to advanced gastrointestinal cancer patients and informal caregivers: A quasi-experimental study

Rationale and aim: Organizational and staff-related barriers need to be overcome in order to integrated early palliative care and develop its supporting infrastructure. We aimed to evaluate the use of a one-nurse-staffed telephone line and bedside consultations on a surgical ward.Method: Advanced gastrointestinal cancer patients and their relatives are offered at diagnosis telephone contact with a nurse with a specialism experience and expertise in the field of palliative care – the contact is lifelong. A proactive holistic approach is taken, including individual needs assessment, guidance, regulation of medication and a tight follow-up. The nurse also acts as a sparring advice partner for colleagues and facilitates complex situations and process. Contacts are described qualitatively in a logbook and the effect on the incidence of hospital admissions and hospital deaths was investigated using a quasi-experimental design with a historical control group. Data were processed using descriptive statistics and Chi-squared (x 2) test.Results: Over 9 month 131 patients and 427 consultations were registred. Outgoing telephone calls to patients, caregivers and professionals (40%). Incoming phone calls (31%) and in-person meeting with patients and families during hospitalization or outpatient visits (29%). Over 15 month intervention and control period the test showed a significant reduction in the short-term admissions of < 2 days, and a significant reduction in the number of patients who died during hospitalization.Conclusion: The telephone follow-up and bedside consultations by one qualified nurse, is an interface that supports continuity and cooperation and could underpine more effective basic palliative care.

Les manifestations amnésiques et dysmnésiques critiques

In this work a computational intelligence-based approach is proposed for forecasting outgoing telephone calls in a University Campus. A modified Takagi–Sugeno–Kang fuzzy neural system is presented, where the consequent parts of the fuzzy rules are neural networks with an internal recurrence, thus introducing the dynamics to the overall system. The proposed model, entitled Locally Recurrent Neurofuzzy Forecasting System (LR-NFFS), is compared to well-established forecasting models, where its particular characteristics are highlighted.

ReNFFor: a recurrent neurofuzzy forecaster for telecommunications data

In this work, a dynamic neurofuzzy system for forecasting outgoing telephone calls in a University Campus is proposed. The system comprises modified Takagi–Sugeno–Kang fuzzy rules, where the rules’ consequent parts are small neural networks with unit internal recurrence. The characteristics of the proposed forecaster, which is entitled recurrent neurofuzzy forecaster, are depicted via a comparative analysis with a series of well-known forecasting models.

A computational intelligence-based forecasting system for telecommunications time series

In this work a computational intelligence-based approach is proposed for forecasting outgoing telephone calls in a University Campus. A modified Takagi–Sugeno–Kang fuzzy neural system is presented, where the consequent parts of the fuzzy rules are neural networks with an internal recurrence, thus introducing the dynamics to the overall system. The proposed model, entitled Locally Recurrent Neurofuzzy Forecasting System (LR-NFFS), is compared to well-established forecasting models, where its particular characteristics are highlighted.

Communication media diffusion and substitutions: longitudinal trends from 1980 to 2005 in Korea

This study analyzes longitudinal trends in Korean use of (1) domestic mail, (2) international mail, (3) domestic telephone calls, (4) international outgoing telephone calls, (5) telex, (6) mobile telephones, (7) televisions and (8) the internet to examine the media’s displacement or supplementary effects.The results show that international mail, domestic telephone and telex can be best described by a quadratic indicating they are undergoing disadoption while the trends for domestic mail and international telephone calls show exponential growth. Correlations confirmed that new media have displaced international mail, domestic telephone and telex, yet they do not substitute for domestic letters and international telephone calls. Finally, television, mobile telephones and the internet are at the exponential or logistic growth stage and supplement each other.

An audit on the reporting of critical results in a tertiary institute

Critical result reporting is a requirement for accreditation by accreditation bodies worldwide. Accurate, prompt communication of results to the clinician by the laboratory is of extreme importance. Repeating of the critical result by the recipient has been used as a means to improve the accuracy of notification. Our objective was to assess the accuracy of notification of critical chemical pathology laboratory results telephoned out to clinicians/clinical areas. We hypothesize that read-back of telephoned critical laboratory results by the recipient may improve the accuracy of the notification. This was a prospective study, where all critical results telephoned by chemical pathologists and registrars at Tygerberg Hospital were monitored for one month. The recipient was required to repeat the result (patient name, folder number and test results). Any error, as well as the designation of the recipient was logged. Of 472 outgoing telephone calls, 51 errors were detected (error rate 10.8%). Most errors were made when recording the folder number (64.7%), with incorrect patient name being the lowest (5.9%). Calls to the clinicians had the highest error rate (20%), most of them being the omission of recording folder numbers. Our audit highlights the potential errors during the post-analytical phase of laboratory testing. The importance of critical result reporting is still poorly recognized in South Africa. Implementation of a uniform accredited practice for communication of critical results can reduce error and improve patient safety.

A SIP-based call center with waiting time prediction

A call center in a company is a centralized office that answers incoming telephone calls from customers or makes outgoing telephone calls to customers. A call center may also provide fax, Voice over IP (VoIP), e-mail or web-based interactions. This paper proposes a plug-in modular architecture for an Internet call center with waiting time prediction. We implement this plug-in module in the SIP Express Router (SER) platform. Then we propose two output measures and develop a discrete event simulation model to investigate the performance of the waiting time prediction algorithm for the call center. Our study indicates that the waiting times can be more accurately predicted when the call arrival rate is large.

Seasonal decomposition and forecasting of telecommunication data: A comparative case study

In this paper, forecasting models for the monthly outgoing telephone calls in a University Campus are presented. The data have been separated in the categories of international and national calls as well as calls to mobile phones. The total number of calls has also been analyzed. Three different methods, namely the Seasonal Decomposition, Exponential Smoothing Method and SARIMA Method, have been used. Forecasts with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for each method and compared with the actual data. The outcome of this work can be used to predict future demands for the telecommunications network of the University.

Improving Patient Safety by Repeating (Read-Back) Telephone Reports of Critical Information

Reducing the rate of avoidable errors is crucial to patient safety. Telephone calls with misunderstood critical results constitute one area in which opportunities for improvement exist. The aviation industry has dealt with this issue by requiring pilots to repeat instructions received from the air traffic controller. At 3 health care organizations, we tested a program to decrease telephone reporting errors by requiring the recipients of critical results to repeat the message. Of 822 outgoing telephone calls from the laboratory, 29 errors were detected (error rate 3.5%). Calls to physicians had the highest rate of errors (6/95 [5%]). The time required to ask for the information and for the message to be repeated averaged 12.8 seconds per call, which corrected 29 errors. A simple system of repeating telephoned laboratory results has the potential to reduce the risk of medical errors and improve patient safety.

Econometric modelling of Spanish very long distance international calling

We estimate a model of the demand for outgoing telephone calls from Spain to a group of African and Oriental countries. The traffic to those countries is called very long distance calling because of the high tariffs applicable to all of them even when some of them are geographically not very distant. In this study a theoretical framework is used which takes into account the specific characteristics of the international long distance services and the socio-economic relationships between Spain and this group of countries. The analysis of annual data for minutes of calling between Spain and 27 countries from 1982 to 1991, using panel data techniques, reveals a significant own-price elasticity of −1.31 and a positive reciprocal calling effect of +0.69. The estimated elasticity of the outgoing traffic to the volume of foreign tourism is +0.22. The estimated elasticities are in the range that is reported in other empirical studies. The favorite equation passes a battery of diagnostics.