SHEILA WHEELER, RN, MS. In addition to being the Founder of TeleTriage Systems, Ms Wheeler has achieved international recognition as a pioneer and expert in telephone triage. She is an accomplished writer, educator,  witness, researcher and previously developed electronic versions of her decision support guidelines with two different software companies.

Ms. Wheeler provides consultation and training to community clinics, public health facilities, academic, military and governmental organizations, physician offices, clinical call centers and student health centers.  She has served as an expert witness on 35 malpractice cases related to telephone triage since 1995.

Ms. Wheeler’s training and guidelines are unique in that they were designed with underserved patients in mind — two  community-based facilities —  Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and Laguna Beach Community Clinic. At that time, Santa Clara Medical Center served 1.3 million low-income, high-risk, low literacy populations speaking 35 different languages.

Wheeler training and universal guideline are currently in use by physicians in Bhopal, India.

Sheila Wheeler has pioneered the  telephone triage field since 1985, developing innovative products and seminars. Listed below are principal milestones.

• 1988 Author “The Fine Art of Telephone Triage”,  First CE program in telephone triage.
• 1990 Original concept, Assistant Producer, “Anonymous Hero”, first training video for emergency medical dispatchers.
• 1993 Author “Development, the first training manual on telephone triage. This best selling text is considered the definitive work in the field. Over 30,000 copies have been sold since 1993.
• 1994 – 2001 Founder, Chairperson and Speaker:  “Telephone Triage: Essentials for Expert Practice”, the first national clinical telephone triage conference (three sites per year, +/-6,000 attendees)
• 1995 Developer, teletriage.com, the first telephone triage website and clearinghouse for information.
• 1995  Author, Editor-in-Chief and Task Force Manager for “Telephone Triage Protocols of Pediatric and Adult Populations” the first age-specific, integrated and patient-centered set of adult and pediatric protocols
• 1997 Clinical Informaticist, collaboratively developed electronic software with LVM Systems for six VA hospitals in northern California and Hawaii.
• 2000  Member, Expert Task Force for National Certification Corporation, telephone triage certification examination
• 2001 Developed the first Protocol Competency CE Course
• 2002 Telephone Triage Protocols for Adult and School Age Populations, Second Edition, Aspen Publishers.
• 2009  Telephone Triage Protocols for Adult Populations, Third Edition McGraw Hill.
• 2010  Training Program:  The Fine Art of Telephone Triage for The Hospital Authority, Hong Kong, China
• 2011 Training Program:  Telephone Triage Essentials for Expert Practice for Physicians, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
• 2014 Training Program:  Telephone Triage: Essentials for Expert Practice Preceptor Program,  Sutter Health Call Center, Salt Lake City, UT
• 2014 Training Program:  Telephone Triage: Essentials for Expert Practice Preceptor Program,  Ambulatory Clinics: OHNS, Pediatrics, Adult Primary Care, University of California San Francisco, CA
• 2015  Lead Author, “Safety of Clinical and Non-Clinical Decision Makers in Telephone Triage: A Narrative Review”  investigating telephone triage safety of physicians, nurses, EMDs and clerical staff (Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, March 2015).
• 2015  Presentation: AAACN Conference. “To Err is Human, To Delay is Deadly” 
• 2016 Presentation: AAACN Conference. Building a Culture of Safety in Telephone Triage
• 2017 Presentation: Safety in Teletriage, to Physicians in Bhopal, India 
• 2017 – 2019 Training Program: Telephone Triage: Essentials for Expert Practice Preceptor Program,
• 2015-2019  Developed Electronic Prototype for a Universal Guideline

1Telephone Triage: Solutions for Recurrent Errors in Primary Care, Urgent Care & ED Settings

• Article
• February 2019

2. Delegating Tasks to Unqualified Staff

• Blog
• April 2018

4. Pediatric Telephone Triage Guidelines, School Age (Age 6-18 Years)

• Book
• January 2017

5. Pediatric Telephone Triage Guidelines, Infant-Child (Age Birth to 6 Years)

• January 2017

6. Adult Telephone Triage Guidelines (Age 18+ Years)

• Book
• January 2017

7. Risk Management in Telephone Triage Part 2: Two Expert Views

• Research
• November 2016

8. Risk Management in Telephone Triage Part 1: New Trends, Advances & Risks

• Research
• November 2016

9. Telephone Triage: Creating a Culture of Safety — Structure, Process and Outcomes

• Conference Paper
• April 2016

10. Safety of Clinical and Non-Clinical Decision Makers in Telephone Triage: A Narrative Review

• Research
• March 2015
• Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare

11. Telephone triage: SAVED by the form

• Article
• December 2000
• Nursing Management

12. Calling all nurses: how to perform telephone triage

• Article
• August 1997
• Nursing Management

13. Calling all nurses

• Article
• July 1997
• Nursing Management

14. Telephone triage: sidestepping the pitfalls

• Article
• June 1994
• Nursing Management

15. Telephone Triage: Theory, Practice and Protocol Development

• Book
• January 1993

16. ED telephone triage: Lessons learned from unusual calls

• Article
• November 1989
• Journal of Emergency Nursing

17. Current Practice in Nursing Care of the Adult: Issues and Concepts. Volume One

• Article
• 1981
• The American Journal of Nursing

TeleTriage Systems Vision

Excellence in Process, Structure and Outcomes…

Innovation…Our goal is to continuously improve and support clinical decision makers with current, evidence-based training...

Design…..Building state of the art, transparent, user-friendly, evidence-based telephone triage protocols or guidelines for clinicians

TeleTriage Systems Values

Processes and Systems that “make it easy to do the right thing” (Institute of Medicine, 2000)

….Solutions that are Real World  and Evidence-Based

A Vision for a Telehealth Culture of Safety

…Patient Safety…..Making good medical decisions under conditions of uncertainty and urgency is difficult…

TeleTriage Systems’  training, products and services have the goal of patient safety as the highest priority 

….Clinician Safety...Telephone triage work is acknowledged as a fast-paced, stressful clinical task…..

The cumulative effect of healthy work environments, user friendly technologies,

and safe practice standards add up to clinician and patient safety and reduce decision fatigue — a contributor to error.