PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 21, No. 18, April 18, 2002

‘Dial-A-Mom’ service provides confidential medical advice 24/7

By Craig Chamberlain, News Bureau Staff Writer
(217) 333-2894; cdchambe@illinois.edu

Photo by Bill Wiegand Health line Michele MacLeod is one of the McKinley Health Center's registered nurses who take turns at the Dial-A-Nurse station, which provides confidential health advice to students around the clock.

It’s late in the afternoon, you think you’ve got a fever, and you know you feel lousy. But mom’s not around to figure out what’s wrong or even administer the chicken soup.

Or it’s late in the evening, you just twisted your ankle, and it has swollen to the size of a softball.

Or maybe it’s 2 a.m. on a spring break weekend in Texas, and your roommate has passed out on the floor after a drinking binge. Will she be fine sleeping it off, or is she suffering from alcohol poisoning?

Who can help?

For UI students, the answer is Dial-A-Nurse. Any time of the day or week – in today’s parlance, 24/7 – it’s the number to call for confidential advice about any and all medical concerns, and guidance on the proper course of action.

It’s been a service of the university’s McKinley Health Center for at least 20 years, and in fact was one of the nation’s first "telehealth" services. "We were used as an example in some early books (on the subject) that were published back then," said Connie Maske, the assistant director at McKinley who oversees clinical support services, including Dial-A-Nurse.

Perhaps half of all U.S. colleges and universities now have a similar service, though many contract them out, and many to out-of-town agencies, Maske said. "What I think is so good about us is that we do it internally, we do it locally, and we try to write out protocols (used by the Dial-A-Nurse nurses) to match with our services and what we think the students need."

"I think it’s a great aspect that we have (as part of the health center)," said Sara Strell, a junior in community health from La Salle, Ill., who joined McKinley’s Student Advisory Board last fall. "If anybody has a question, they can call a certified health professional, as opposed to taking the chance of getting the information off the Internet, or just going by a friend’s assessment of the situation."

The importance of Dial-A-Nurse for McKinley might be illustrated by its prominent placement on the health center’s home page on the Web. Its importance to students is shown by the number of calls: more than 11,000 during the first 11 months of 2001, according to McKinley records.

Dial-A-Nurse offers answers to basic medical questions, and guidance in dealing with specific medical concerns. But in the process of doing that, Maske said, it also serves as a bridge or guide for many students to what McKinley has to offer, most of which is provided at no extra charge.

McKinley’s services, including Dial-A-Nurse, are supported by the health fee paid each term by all registered students.

Dial-A-Nurse is actually three different operations in one. During regular business hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., the calls may be handled by various nurses at McKinley. From 5 p.m. to midnight on weekdays, the calls are taken by Georga O’Connor, McKinley’s full-time evening Dial-A-Nurse.

And from midnight to 8 a.m. on weekdays, 4 p.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday, and on some holidays and breaks, the calls go to the telehealth service at Carle Clinic Association in Urbana. Carle has been contracted to provide that part of the service over the last three school years, and coordinates closely with McKinley. The student health center, for example, gets regular reports on student calls, and Carle nurses refer students to McKinley for services and doctor appointments, where medically appropriate.

The nurses who take calls have to be prepared for almost any problem or concern, Maske said. "It may be all the way from ‘You need to take some Tylenol’ to something very serious where we’re referring them to an emergency room."

Though most students are in the 18-to-24 age range and in generally good health, "any medical condition that would exist in the real world exists in these students," she said. There are students with transplanted organs, students on chemotherapy, students with HIV, diabetes, asthma and mental health concerns, and students dealing with the effects of substance abuse and sexually transmitted disease.

And then there are all the questions "that have nothing to do with actual medical care," Maske said. It’s one reason the service is known also as
"Dial-A-Mom," she said. The nickname apparently originated with a particular nurse who staffed the phone in the evenings over several years, and became popular with students. But it continues as a nickname for the service because health matters often touch on other personal matters, and on other everyday concerns that students may still be learning to deal with on their own.

"Sometimes it’s just (giving them) that common-sense answer that is right in front of them," said Penny Meeker, Carle’s patient care director, who oversees its telehealth services. "And they just need guidance to develop independence in their ability to problem solve for themselves."

Based on her experience with Dial-A-Nurse, Meeker suggested parents should think about how they can better prepare their college-bound children for the transition to caring for their own health needs. One very basic example: pack a thermometer along with the computer.

Maske estimated that maybe one in 10 calls to Dial-A-Nurse actually comes from parents, sometimes asking general information about services, and sometimes asking specific questions for their son or daughter. The calls from parents also often spike up following reports of cases such as meningitis, even when those cases are at another school or in the Chicago area, she said. Parents want to know about the risk on campus, the preparations, the wisdom of getting the vaccine, etc.

In the weeks following Sept. 11 last year, "we got calls about anthrax from parents, we got calls from parents wanting to know if we had the smallpox vaccine," Maske said.

Those calls from parents to Dial-A-Nurse (333-2700) are welcomed, Maske and Meeker said. They also noted that both parents and students can find extensive information about McKinley services and specific health concerns on the McKinley Web site, www.mckinley.uiuc.edu.

They cautioned, however, that parents who call hoping to check up on their children’s health will get little satisfaction. Parents need to have an "open dialogue" with their kids about health matters, because if parents call for that information, there’s very little that McKinley or Carle can provide, Meeker said.

"We really cannot even validate that their child called and talked to us. We can’t do that because that’s a breach of confidentiality for that student," she said, and that’s protected by federal law.