Appointment reminder systems and patient preferences: Patient technology usage and familiarity with other service providers as predictive variables

Abstract

This study had two aims: to measure patient preferences for medical appointment reminder systems and to assess the predictive value of patient usage and familiarity with other service providers contacting them on responsiveness to appointment reminder systems. We used a cross-sectional design wherein patients' at an urban, primary-care clinic ranked various reminder systems and indicated their usage of technology and familiarity with other service providers contacting them over text messages and e-mails. We assessed the impact of patient usage of text messages and e-mails and patient familiarity with other service providers contacting them over text messages and e-mails on effectiveness of and responsiveness to appointment reminder systems. We found that patient usage of text messages or e-mails and familiarity with other service providers contacting them are the best predictors of perceived effectiveness and responsiveness to text message and e-mail reminders. When these variables are accounted for, age and other demographic variables do not predict responsiveness to reminder systems.

Dental School Patient Preferences for Receiving and Returning Patient Satisfaction Surveys

“…19 By contrast, other research found that U.S. households earning less than $50,000 per year were signiicantly less likely than those with higher income levels to use the Internet. 29 Since familiarity with new technologies may increase over time, clinics contemplating using an Internet-based or online survey may ind it beneicial to continue to ask patients about their preferences for receiving and returning surveys and to adjust their methodologies as needed to continue to match those preferences. Smyth et al found that familiarity was the most important predictor in preferences for Internet surveys over either mailed or telephone surveys.…”

Language‐Appropriate Appointment Reminders: Assessing the Communication Preferences of Women With Limited English Proficiency

“…A 23‐item survey instrument (see Supporting Information: Appendix S1) was created for use in this study, including both original questions and questions adapted from an existing tool . Finkelstein and Liu granted permission for the adaptation and use of their survey in this study.…”

“…A 23-item survey instrument (see Supporting Information: Appendix S1) was created for use in this study, including both original questions and questions adapted from an existing tool. 14 Finkelstein and Liu granted permission for the adaptation and use of their survey in this study. The adapted survey was designed to capture the experience of receiving automated appointment reminder calls in English (3 items), use of short message service (SMS) technology and/or e-mail (8 items), costs incurred for these services (2 items), reasons for missing scheduled appointments (one item), and preferences for and receptiveness to receiving appointment reminders through a variety of modalities including text, e-mail, phone, or direct mail (6 items).…”

Assessing the Online Outpatient Booking System

“…Also in one study by Finkelstein et al, entitled "Priorities of appointment reminder systems and patient", the use of this facility was reported in 2.66% of all systems studied in Colombia (33), although in a study from Norway, 45.45% of hospital appointment systems were able to recall the appointment (34), which is not consistent with the current study. The reviewed studies revealed that post-appointment recall probability significantly contributed to the system flexibility, time management (15), reduction in the number of missed appointments (14,15,24,25,33,34) and costs (33,34).…”