VIDEO: Half of after-hours calls to endocrinology fellows are nonurgent

The rest of the calls were for insulin pump failure (9%), hyperglycemia (14%) or hypoglycemia (9%), concerns related to insulin regimen (9%) or thyroid-related medication (5%), requests for test results (4%), fever or rash reports (6%), and inpatient consults (5%).

To tackle the issue of nonurgent calls, Dr. Siddiqui and colleagues have been educating patients to call during work hours for test results, and to request refills 3 business days ahead of time. In addition, they are reminding providers to ask about refills during the clinic visit and to discuss with patients when an after-hours call because of blood glucose thresholds would be warranted.

Dr. Siddiqui and colleagues are now analyzing results of these initiatives to show to what extent they are reducing work burden on fellows and improving patient satisfaction.

“Even in the past 2-3 months, we have seen a significant improvement,” Dr. Siddiqui said.

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“The patients get to speak to their primary endocrinologist and are happier with their care, because they have one provider, one person who’s answering their questions,” she added. “With this, we also reduced the burden of nonurgent calls, so the fellows have more personal time, are not getting disturbed in their sleep, and have less chances of being over worked or fatigued.”

Dr. Siddiqui reported no disclosures related to the presentation.