The risk assessment groups of the intervention | Total intervention (n=300) | |||
High risk (n=96) | Intermediate risk (n=174) | Low risk (n=30) | ||
Staff time to risk assessment (minutes)*, mean (SD) | ||||
Nurse | – | – | – | 41.3 (5.1)* |
Cardiologist | – | – | – | 5.1 (1.9)* |
Secretary | – | – | – | 10 (0.5)* |
Telephone consultations, mean (SD) | ||||
Average number of consultations | ||||
Initiated by nurse | 1.3 (1.3) | 1.3 (1.0) | 1.1 (0.9) | 1.3 (1.1) |
Initiated by the patient | 0.6 (1.1) | 0.4 (0.7) | 0.6 (1.4) | 0.5 (1.0) |
Duration of consultations, all (minutes)*† | – | – | – | 13.3 (3.7)* |
Nurse outpatient consultation, mean (SD) | ||||
Average number of consultations, per patient | 2.5 (1.8)‡ | 1.9 (1.2) | 1.3 (1.3)‡ | 2.1 (1.5) |
Duration of consultations, all (minutes)* | – | – | – | 30.2 (3.6)* |
*The duration was recorded in minutes for the first 50 patients.
†Duration (minutes) of telephone consultations initiated by patients was not registered separately (but assumed to be equal to telephone consultations initiated by nurses).
‡Denotes statistically significant difference from intermediate-risk group ascertained by t-test.