Death of an infant after contacting a telephone triage call centre: Is telephone triage really safe?

Abstract

The death of a previously well 13-month-old infant approximately 5 h after his mother contacted the Queensland Nurse led telephone triage call centre '13Health' for advice is the first Australian casualty of telephone triage. Experience from this case and another 'near miss' incident Australia highlight the potential of this model of care to harm patients using the service when it attempts to provide health advice compared with health information.