Good Afternoon Shannon,
You might get more responses posting this question over on the Telehealth Nursing Practice SIG that in this Open forum.
I don't think there is one "right" answer as many of us have unique workflows that can impact call time. My team's average is 9 minutes. There will be outliers such as obvious emergent 911 calls may only be a couple of minutes while the depression call may be way longer than average. Workflows such as do your RNs schedule the patient's appointment (if disposition is office visit) or do they hand off the call to a scheduler. Does the scheduling workflow require a call to the clinic if no appointment is not available? These are just a couple of factors that can impact call time.
Our queue is programed to give 30 seconds "wrap up" time before the status is changed to "ready" for the next call. The goal is to complete documentation by the end of the call. During peak times, a RN may not complete the documentation before the next call comes in. Epic is configured to have a maximum of 3 charts open at any time. If that occurs, the RN will go on "not ready" status to complete their charting.
I didn't set benchmarks for average call length or volume of calls. When I review the dashboards, I'm looking for outliers. If I see a RN has a consistent long average call length, I provide coaching on ways to make the call more efficient. On the opposite side, if I see a RN with short average call lengths, I double checking that workflows aren't being skipped.
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Scott Teplin CEN MSN RN-BC
Manager Clinical Services
UCLA
steplin@mednet.ucla.edu------------------------------