Objectives: Using predictive modeling techniques, we developed and
compared appointment no-show prediction models to better understand appointment
adherence in underserved populations. Methods and Materials: We
collected electronic health record (EHR) data and appointment data including
patient, provider and clinical visit characteristics over a 3-year period. All
patient data came from an urban system of community health centers (CHCs) with
10 facilities. We sought to identify critical variables through logistic
regression, artificial neural network, and naïve Bayes classifier models to
predict missed appointments. We used 10-fold cross-validation to assess the
models’ ability to identify patients missing their appointments.
Results: Following data preprocessing and cleaning, the final
dataset included 73811 unique appointments with 12,392 missed appointments.
Predictors of missed appointments versus attended appointments included lead
time (time between scheduling and the appointment), patient prior missed
appointments, cell phone ownership, tobacco use and the number of days since
last appointment. Models had a relatively high area under the curve for all 3
models (e.g., 0.86 for naïve Bayes classifier). Discussion: Patient
appointment adherence varies across clinics within a healthcare system. Data
analytics results demonstrate the value of existing clinical and operational
data to address important operational and management issues.
Conclusion: EHR data including patient and scheduling
information predicted the missed appointments of underserved populations in
urban CHCs. Our application of predictive modeling techniques helped prioritize
the design and implementation of interventions that may improve efficiency in
community health centers for more timely access to care. CHCs would benefit from
investing in the technical resources needed to make these data readily available
as a means to inform important operational and policy questions.