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Healthline
Frequently asked questions
This page provides information about Healthline, the free telephone health information service for all the family.
What is Healthline?
What is the phone number for Healthline?
Where is Healthline available?
What are Healthline’s hours?
Who staffs Healthline?
Who is Healthline for?
What happens during a Healthline call?
How safe is Healthline?
What are the most common symptoms that people ring Healthline about?
How new is telephone triage?
Have the pilot Healthline services been evaluated?
Who carried out the independent evaluation of the pilot Healthline services?
What did the evaluation find?
Did the evaluation include an audit for clinical safety?
Where can I find a copy of the independent evaluation?
What is Healthline?
Healthline is a free telephone health information service for all the family that assesses a caller's health needs and gives information and advice to help a caller decide on the type of health care they need.
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What is the phone number for Healthline?
The phone number for Healthline is 0800 611 116
Where is Healthline available?
Healthline, including the Well Child line, is available to callers throughout New Zealand from either a landline or a cell phone.
What are Healthline’s hours?
Healthline operates 24-hours a day.
Who staffs Healthline?
The services are staffed by registered nurses. Healthline nurses do not diagnose over the phone but consider all the possibilities and then advise on the best level of care.
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Who is Healthline for?
Healthline is accessible to everyone with a phone. It provides:
an assessment of health problems with advice on the most appropriate level of treatment and a recommended timeframe for doing so
advice on self care and symptom management
advice on the prevention of illness
health information, for example information about diseases
information about availability and location of services
referral connection to other emergency services
What happens during a Healthline call?
Once connected, the nurse will talk the caller through their symptoms, discount those that don't apply and through a process of elimination arrive at an assessment of how serious the symptoms are, the appropriate place to seek help and a timeframe within which to do so.
The advice dispensed may range from "self-care" through to "see your GP within 24 hours" to "we're ordering an ambulance for you right now."
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How safe is Healthline?
Healthline nurses are experienced registered nurses who have worked in a variety of settings including primary care and hospital emergency departments. There's also an in-built safety mechanism in the clinical decisions they make: the questions asked by the nurse are structured to eliminate the most serious possibilities first.
They're set out in a software package, which prompts the nurse without directing them. If at any stage professional training, experience or instinct tells the Healthline nurse to override the software, then they will do so, under standard operational procedures. Any decision to override the software has to be fully documented by the nurse and is reviewed the following day by team leaders.
The Healthline service does not diagnose. The nurses determine the most appropriate level of care for the caller. One example would be the caller with back pain, which, in a worst-case scenario could mean aortic dissection. This is a very serious condition caused when the main artery to the trunk and legs leaks or splits, causing tissue damage and pain. The Healthline nurse will check for this possibility first. Once eliminated he or she will then work through less serious possibilities.
What are the most common symptoms that people ring Healthline about?
The most common adult symptom people ring in about is abdominal pain. The two most common paediatric symptoms people ring about are fever and vomiting.
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How new is telephone triage?
Telephone triage services have been operating in the United States for over 20 years, in the United Kingdom as NHS Direct, as well as Australia, South Africa, Scandinavia, France, Belgium and Portugal.
Have the Healthline services been evaluated?
Yes. In 2002 independent researchers evaluated the pilot Healthline services.
Who carried out the independent evaluation of the pilot Healthline services?
BRC Marketing and Social Research, and Te Pumanawa Hauora, Massey University.
What did the evaluation find?
Most callers were women, or adults calling on behalf of their children.
78 percent were from people who relayed symptoms. Other calls were from people who called wanting general information.
69 percent were made out of normal business hours (8am-5.30pm Monday to Friday).
69 percent did what they were advised by Healthline staff. When callers didn't follow advice it was found to be because the symptoms in question had abated.
97 percent of callers said they were very satisfied or satisfied with their call to Healthline
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Did the evaluation include an audit for clinical safety?
The Healthline service was audited for clinical safety by the Department of General Practice, Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and the School of Health Sciences, Massey University
The School of Health Sciences concluded that the service is a safe and effective clinical advisory service that operates in a manner consistent with New Zealand Nursing Council Guidelines.
Both audit teams found the Healthline service has operated at least as safely to date as similar overseas telephone services.
Where can I find a copy of the independent evaluation?
The Evaluation of the Healthline service
is available on this website.
Related information
Well Child telephone advice service
Evaluation of the Healthline Service - Final evaluative report
Page last reviewed: 10 June 2009
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