You both have excellent points concerning appropriately assessing patients over the telephone and how it can be challenging. I was a part of a telemonitoring program for congestive heart failure patients and what I learned from that experience is that history taking is CRITICAL. We developed a telephone assessment protocol that would assist the nurse in asking all the pertinent questions regarding heart failure exacerbation in addition other key points to address. However, as the supervisor over the program, I one my challenges was getting everyone on board in following the phone assessment tools. Furthermore, not all nurses feel comfortable assessing over the phone and as you both mentioned "patient should be seen for a formal assessment".
