Diagnosis of Rare but Dangerous Diseases in Primary Telephone Consultation

Abstract

Primary telephone consultation provides the patient with the opportunity to make a phone call and receive medical information between the onset of the first symptoms of the disease and their first visit to the doctor. This creates an opportunity to speed up the moment when the patient receives the first qualified help and thereby increases the success of further treatment. This is especially important in the case of the so-called “must not miss” diseases. These are the most dangerous, albeit rare, diseases in which early detection and treatment is a decisive factor in the success of treatment. However, telephone consultations can also create new problems, the most important of which is related to the fact that in such process the doctor has only the data that can be obtained by interviewing the patient. This is fraught with an increased risk of medical error. This danger is especially great in the case of “must not miss” diseases, in which only at the very early stage there are serious chances to stop the progression of the disease. The article discusses ways to solve this problem – the requirements that must be met by the organisation of a consultation in order to maximise the use of the possibilities of telephone consultation in these conditions for the timely detection of “must not miss” diseases. The problems of harmonising these requirements with the organisational and economic conditions in which telephone consultation is carried out are discussed.