Background
SECONDARY
Out-of-hours primary care service is a crucial part of a well-functioning health care system, which provides health care when general practitioners’ (GPs) offices are closed. The member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have selected different models to provide this kind of service to their populations [The non-urgent use of out-of-hours service, both in primary care and emergency department setting, is of concern, because it may crowd out patients with the highest need and lead to inefficient use of resources [Some countries, such as the UK, have a national telephone triage and advice system. Norway has one national telephone number for out-of-hours service; however, nurses in local out-of-hours GP cooperatives handle the calls from the local population. A review from 2017 suggested that more than 50% of calls to the telephone triage and advice system could be dealt with by providing telephone advice alone [High variation has been reported in measured appropriateness of advice provided by the telephone triage and advice services [Overall, telephone triage in out-of-hours care appears to be safe because high-risk patients are mostly identified and handled correctly [Norwegian citizens are entitled to have a list-holding GP who offer planned and emergent service for their listed patients in-hour [High primary care physician continuity leads to lower costs in health care, fewer hospitalizations, and lower mortality [Specific training may strengthen telephone triage nurses’ gatekeeping capacity. However, insufficient evidence is available to conclude the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing emergency department attendance [The primary aim of this study was to assess the effect of an educational intervention about RTIs and communication skills for telephone triage nurses on out-of-hours attendance for RTIs. The secondary aims were to describe the distribution of RTIs between list-holding GPs and out-of-hours GP cooperatives and assess the intervention’s effect on list-holding GPs’ attendance.