CHOC’s Hotline Fields 4,000 Calls a Month

Even nonprofit hospitals must compete these days. Last spring, Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange started a telephone advice hotline for parents across the county worried about their children’s health problems.

It’s staffed around-the-clock by pediatric nurses, who give advice on everything from the newborn who won’t breast feed to the toddler who awakes at midnight with a 105-degree temperature. A nurse, checking protocols approved by the hospital’s doctors, assesses how sick the child is. She advises the parent whether to care for the child at home, head for the doctor the next day, or even go to the nearest emergency room.

While promoted as a public service, hospital officials say the hotline should also help the institution maintain and strengthen its position in the increasingly competitive local health-care market.

The program is aimed at building the hospital’s relationships with doctors, so more will admit patients to CHOC and its affiliate program at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo. Officials also hope to satisfy managed care plans looking for assurance that the hospital is working to prevent overuse of its emergency room.

The results so far? The hotline attracts lots of calls--an average of 4,000 a month. And all 200 pediatricians and family practitioners on staff at CHOC are using it.

But surveys suggest the service may not be fully reaching those most in need of it, including Spanish-speaking residents or those with low incomes. Abbey Lovell, the hospital’s marketing and planning manager, says the hospital will look for better ways of spreading the word.

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Barbara Marsh covers health care for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com.