McKesson Clinical Reference Systems: Pediatric Advisor 2002.1

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Everyone on the office team can be involved with helping parents obtain appropriate handouts. The office staff can use handouts to better utilize waiting time both in the waiting room and the exam rooms.

1. In the waiting room.

   A menu of selected handouts can be posted on the office bulletin board. Parents can request them from the front desk. They can also print copies of their own if a copying machine and a binder containing selected handouts are available. During epidemics or seasonal illness, stacks of relevant handouts can be placed in the waiting room (e.g., influenza, hay fever, chickenpox). Just as toys are essential for children in the waiting room, so is reading material for the parents.

2. After nursing contact.

   After the nurse processes the patient and puts her into the exam room, she can provide one or two handouts that are appropriate for the child's illness. Selected handouts can be stocked in the exam room (e.g., fever, diarrhea, colds). The parent then can read the handout while waiting for the physician. A good spin-off of this procedure is that it reduces the number of routine questions the parent will have for the physician.

3. After physician contact.

   After the physician has examined the patient and made a specific diagnosis, he can write down or mark on a checklist the handout (e.g., asthma, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, or croup) that he wants the parents to receive. These can be printed from the computer and given to the parent at the appointment desk. The front desk staff or the physician should write in the patient's name at the top of the handout, because this gesture makes it more likely that the family will read it.

4. During the first visit.

   Some of the instruction sheets cover minor illnesses that are universal and that every child acquires on multiple occasions. These include cough, sore throat, diarrhea, fever, and others. These parent handouts can be given out as a packet on the first office visit. Thereafter they can be referred to for home treatment and save the health care provider considerable telephone time in discussing them.

5. By mail.

   When parents call in requesting information about particular topics, often these can be mailed out. Examples are Lyme disease, ADD, bedwetting, and sleepwalking.