  This change has coincided with a sharp increase in the number of patients who are upset by the time they speak to her. On a typical day, as many as a third of her almost two dozen triage calls are with patients who have struggled to access appropriate care.

This seems like it's working, actually. Similar to automated Amazon warehouses experiencing a seemingly paradoxical increase in injury rates compared to non-automated ones.....it's very possible this is simply selection bias and the patient triage overall is improved greatly.

▲ LordDragonfang 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not sure that assertion holds; looking into the Amazon thing, it looks like the mechanism there was that it automated the "safe" parts of the job (notably walking), and greatly increased the rates at which workers were expected to perform the parts likely to result in injury/RSI, with less downtime between. That's not a flattering comparison to be making for any health system.

▲ watwut 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Being upset over obtuse process by the time you speek to a doctor is not a sign of good triage. Good triage does not implies angry patients.

Also, amazon injury rates were not paradoxical. If you dont care about people when designing process, it is unsurprising when you end up hurting them.

	▲	harvey9 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I mostly agree, except in some circumstances good triage can imply angry patients (assuming demand will exceed supply sometimes) : Lots of people present inappropriately at ER and then complain that they have to wait a long time.

▲ ofjcihen 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is ignoring that patients were being routed correctly before. This isn’t someone at a help desk. This is a mental health clinician being given the same patients after a worse intake process.