A nurse telephone triage service offers special features above an ordinary medical answering service—which itself is above a regular call center.  Whereas a medical answering service answers general questions relating to doctor visits and other medical information, a nurse telephone triage service is actually capable of answering health questions.  

A nurse telephone triage service is staffed by nurses.  Nurses do more than just secretarial work.  A nurse must be able to assess a client's health based on described symptoms.  Not only must a nurse know how to recognize a patient’s condition in person, but he or she must also account for a lack of face-to-face interaction.  Therefore, this worker must be highly skilled in medical knowledge, disease, hospital procedure and normal age development.  In addition, the nurse must have excellent communication skills.  

Not only must the nurse know how to respond in an emergency, but he or she must also have good listening skills and perceptive ability.  For example, is a patient demonstrating vocal signs of the same symptoms he described?  Or is she giving any non-verbal clues as to the condition, like anxiety, pain or confusion?

Nurse telephone triage services are also a step above health advice lines.  The latter is mainly a community service and strives to answer general health concerns.  The triage service does more than secretarial work.  When a patient calls in, sometimes he or she wants more than just a live operator.  They may want medical advice.  This is not an appropriate action for a medical operator that only has experience in making appointments or filing for prescriptions.  

A nurse telephone triage service is especially necessary in cases of a sick or sensitive patient.  If the caller is susceptible to disease or infection, then a doctor must keep in close contact.  If he or she is unavailable for a short period of time then a nurse may have to give lifesaving advice.  This is the main difference and an important reason for you to order such a service.