Symptom Screening
Streamlined Call Prioritization for Call Center Agents
Quick and consistent prioritization of symptoms for non-clinical agents informed by decades of experience in nurse triage and call center leadership.
Empowering Non-Clinical Teams to
Consistently Route Calls
Call center agents, front desk staff, and schedulers are often the first point of contact for worried patients or caregivers, but they don’t have clinical licenses and shouldn’t be making clinical decisions. They need a tool that allows them to collect data about symptoms and then tells them where to route the call. Whether it’s to a triage nurse, doctor, or appointment scheduler, screening guides ensure every symptom-based call moves to the appropriate level of care.
Screening guides, built on our trusted clinical content, help non-clinical teams route calls quickly and safely.
Symptom Screening Guides: How They Work
A Simple Process to Streamline Symptom Prioritization
1
Search by
Symptoms
Agents enter the patient’s reported symptoms in plain language to find the right screening guide or guides. They select each symptom mentioned by the caller. No need for non-clinical staff to make the clinical decision as to which symptom is the most serious.
2
Gather Data with Simple
Yes or No Questions
Agents ask a short series of straightforward yes/no questions specific to the symptom or symptoms selected in the first step. The first yes (or “I’m not sure”) answer identifies the priority of the call, ensuring consistent and accurate prioritization without requiring clinical expertise. This process enables agents to consistently identify the most appropriate priority.
3
Follow the Instructions
for the Priority
For each priority level, the agent is presented with specific instructions on how to handle the call. Those instructions are written by the call center or clinic leadership, ensuring calls are handled according to the organization’s policies and resources.
Screening Guides Replace Red Flag Lists
Symptom screening guides take the guesswork out of handling calls by replacing traditional red flag lists—simple lists of symptoms used by call center agents to identify emergencies.
Unlike red flag lists, symptom screening guides provide a structured framework built on trusted clinical content and triage expertise. With clear steps and easy-to-use software, non-clinical staff can confidently screen calls and guide patients to the right level of care.
Screening Guides for Full Age Range Call Centers
Symptom screening guides are the only clinical content set provided by Schmitt Pediatric Guidelines LLC that cover all ages rather than just children and teens. The medical editorial team for these guides includes full age range providers. In addition, feedback has been gathered from full age range clinics, ensuring safe prioritization for patients of all ages.
AI Agents and
Screening Guides
Our symptom screening guides are suitable for use by AI agents as well as human agents. If you’re building a voice bot or a chat bot, our screening logic ensures quick, consistent prioritization of the patient’s symptoms. If you’re in a hybrid call center, our screening guides ensure the AI agents prioritize symptoms using the same logic as human agents.
Core Benefits of Symptom Screening Guides
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Quick and Accurate Call Prioritization
Symptom screening guides allow non-clinical staff to handle calls efficiently, ensuring patients are routed to the appropriate care without unnecessary delays. (The mean time for call screening is 17 seconds.)
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Reliable and Consistent Guidance
With standardized, expert-written screening guides, every call follows a clear process, so there’s less chance for human error.
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No Clinical Decision Making Required
With a strict process of data gathering matched with clear instructions for what to do next, screening guides allow your agents to route calls without making any clinical decisions.
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More Appropriate Use of Triage Nurses
Reduce the number of unnecessary calls going to your urgent nurse triage line while at the same time identifying urgent calls that were previously being missed. One organization used our screening guides to reduce nurse triage wait times by 86%!
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Powered by Schmitt Decision Logic
Built on decades of trusted clinical triage, symptom screening guides are the gold standard screening tool for nonclinical staff.
Where to Get Our Screening Guides
SymptomScreen is the exclusive provider of our symptom screening guides. It supports customization of our standard guides and priorities to meet the needs of your organization. It also supports the intelligent combination of questions across multiple symptoms.
The screening guides are available for use in two different ways:
- SymptomScreen software is suitable for use by human agents, letting them enter symptoms, ask the brief screening questions, and follow the priority instructions for that call.
- SymptomScreen APIs are suitable for building your own software, typically for use with an AI agent that is handling general calls to your organization.
SymptomScreen integrates seamlessly into your current processes, giving your non-clinical staff the support they need to prioritize patients consistently and safety. The priorities and questions can easily be customized by you to match your organization’s processes.