Top Tips for Telephone Consultations

Advice for effective telephone consultations:

• Remove distractions – avoid multi-tasking
• Identify the patient
• Check that it is a good time to talk (safe/confidential)
• Warm greeting – smile!!
• Warm tone of voice, verbal encouragements
  • “uh huh, OK etc.”
• Try to connect on a personal level
  • Refer to previous calls, do you know the patient or their family already?
• Summarise periodically
• Pacing and Language
  • Speak slowly and clearly
  • Avoid jargon
  • Pause after asking questions
  • Give patient space to ask questions
• Empathy
  • Use explicit empathic statements – “that sounds really tough”
• Agenda Setting
  • Find out the patient’s ideas, concerns and expectations
  • Negotiate what can’t be covered in this call
• Ending the call
  • Signpost – “We have just a couple of minutes left, I want to go over what we have discussed and plan the next steps”
  • Clarify the plan
  • What happens next?
  • Safety netting

Adapted from work by Kelly Skelly and Marcy Rosenbaum, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics