Keona Health has released practical ROI guidance for nursing leaders and healthcare operations teams, quantifying the hidden costs of manual triage processes. The analysis, based on customer data and industry experience, arrives as healthcare organizations face compounding pressure from staffing shortages, rising call volumes, and increasing clinical complexity.
The guidance includes a before-and-after performance comparison, a breakdown of cost centers affected by outdated triage infrastructure, and a Triage ROI Calculator that organizations can use to estimate savings based on their current call volume and staffing model. It is designed for nursing and operations leaders who want a structured way to quantify triage performance and evaluate the case for investment.
When non-clinical staff handle calls requiring clinical judgment, consequences compound across departments. Organizations relying on paper-based triage protocols frequently experience inconsistent clinical decisions, extended onboarding timelines, and elevated downstream risk. Misclassified calls can generate avoidable emergency department visits, documentation errors, unnecessary callbacks, and liability exposure.
'These are not isolated inefficiencies,' said Stephen Dean, COO of Keona Health. 'These failures are caused by structural problems. A manual triage model is not designed to scale efficiently.'
The clinical stakes are significant. A 2024 evidence-based review published in the Journal of Emergency Nursing reported human triage accuracy ranging from approximately 59% to 82%, varying based on clinician experience and case complexity. According to Keona Health's internal data, AI-assisted triage has demonstrated an accuracy rate of 93% in directing patients to the appropriate level of care.
AI-supported triage systems address workflow gaps that manual processes leave open. According to Keona Health customer data, organizations implementing AI-guided triage have reported measurable operational improvements within 90 days, including a 20% to 30% reduction in call handling time, documentation time reductions of up to 50%, reduced nurse onboarding timelines to 2–3 weeks, and observed reductions in unnecessary emergency department referrals.
'Healthcare call centers are not only experiencing a staffing problem. They're facing a workflow problem,' said Dean. 'When triage decisions depend on paper binders and non-clinical judgment calls, you're not managing risk. You're absorbing it.'
These outcomes reflect a broader pattern: organizations that modernize triage infrastructure reduce systemic clinical risk, improve staff retention by lowering cognitive burden on nurses, and create a foundation for scalable patient access operations. The full Nursing Triage ROI analysis, including the ROI Calculator, is available at KeonaHealth.com.
