Telephone triage training, consulting and expertise -- trusted by medical professionals since 1985
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About TeleTriage Systems & Sheila Wheeler


Woman-on-headset

Offering Telephone Triage Seminars & Consulting Since 1985

Founded in 1985, TeleTriage Systems — the first consulting firm to the telephone triage industry — has a tradition of trail blazing.   Ms. Wheeler specializes in one-of-a-kind, best-of-breed, innovative products and services:  training manual (1993), telephone triage conference (1994), age-specific, patient-centered, 5-Tier Triage decision support guidelines (1995),  and telehealth website (1995).

Our products are “real world”, built by clinicians who currently practice telephone triage.  Our goal is to create safe, user friendly systems that are high quality and evidence-based.  Our training, decision support systems and consulting solutions focus on Quality Improvement and Risk Management.  Continuing Education programs are designed for clinicians — physicians, nurse-practitioners and physician-assistants, medical and nursing students.

30+ Year Track Record of Innovation, Excellence and Leadership

35,000+ Training Manuals sold since 1993

About Sheila Quilter Wheeler

Expert, Researcher & Author

sheila-profileSHEILA 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,  expert witness, researcher and previously developed 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 in telephone triage since 1995.

Ms. Wheeler’s training and guidelines are unique in that they were designed with underserved patients in mind.  In 1995, Ms Wheeler developed age-based guidelines for two  community-based facilities:  Santa Clara 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. Her training and universal guideline is currently in use by physicians in Bhopal India.

Ms. Wheeler is the author of Telephone Triage: Theory, Practice, and Protocol Development as well as Telephone Triage Protocols for Adult and Pediatric Populations. She has written for Nursing 97, Journal of Emergency Nursing, and has lectured internationally, most recently in a presentation on Safety of Teletriage for clinics in Bhopal India.

Sheila is the founder and chairperson of “Telephone Triage:  Essentials for Expert Practice, the first annual, multi-site, national clinical conference on telephone triage from 1994 to 2003. Please click this link to hear Ms. Wheeler’s recent presentation “To Err is Human, To Delay is Deadly” at the 2015 AAACN conference.

Ms Wheeler’s clinical background spans 40 + years, and includes critical care, emergency department and clinic settings. Ms. Wheeler has recent experience as a front-line telephone triage practitioner in a clinical call center in San Francisco.

To request more information or schedule a consultation, please contact Sheila Wheeler.

Sheila Quilter Wheeler Milestones

Sheila Wheeler has pioneered the  telephone triage field since 1985. Here areas of expertise include development of 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 “Telephone Triage: Theory, Practice and Protocol 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 telephone triage conference.  Approximately 6,000 attendees since 1994.
  • 1995  Developer, teletriage.com, the first telephone triage website and clearinghouse for information.
  • 1995   Author, Editor-in-Chief and Project 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 The Fine Art of Telephone Triage program for Hospital Authority, Hong Kong, China
  • 2011  Telephone Triage Essentials for Expert Practice for Physicians, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
  • 2014 Telephone Triage: Essentials for Expert Practice Preceptor Program,  Sutter Health Call Center, Salt Lake City, UT
  • 2014 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  Presenter, AAACN Conference.  Lister to her presentation “To Err is Human, To Delay is Deadly” 
  • 2016 Presenter, AAACN Conference. Building a Culture of Safety in Telephone Triage2017 Presenter, Safety in Teletriage, Bhopal, India 

VISION STATEMENT

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.