Samenvatting

In practice, every day obstetric emergency care departments in hospitals receive several telephone calls from pregnant women. During these calls, midwives, nurses or doctor’s assistants use their obstetric knowledge and experience to determine the severity of the complaints and the necessity and urgency for a physical consultation with an obstetrician or a midwife. This triage is not always in the hands of optimally trained personnel. Moreover, this telephone triage is a medical procedure that is not performed in a uniform manner due to the lack of a specific obstetric telephone triage
system. Therefore, there is a need in Dutch obstetric care for an evidence-based telephone triage system that provides a uniform and concrete basis for assessing the severity of the symptoms of obstetric emergency and other unplanned care requests, originating by telephone.