Prompt letters to reduce non-attendance: applying evidence based practice

Jayaram, Mahesh; Rattehalli, Ranganath D.; Kader, Ihsan

doi:10.1186/1471-244x-8-90

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Another potential limitation of this study is the designation of failure to attend as non‐attendance of one or more clinic visits. Whether this is a clinically relevant number that impacts on patient follow up remains to be validated, but this definition has been used in other studies examining factors predicting non‐attendance to oncology 16 and non‐oncology clinics 17 . We further explored our data and found the median number of appointments that patients failed to attend was 2 (range 1–21).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of clinic non‐attendance: opportunities to improve patient outcomes in colorectal cancer

Kosmider¹,

Shedda

Jones

et al. 2010

Internal Medicine Journal

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of clinic non‐attendance: opportunities to improve patient outcomes in colorectal cancer

Kosmider¹,

Shedda

Jones

et al. 2010

Internal Medicine Journal

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“… 9 It is important that organisations review the current systems and variation prior to the collaborative commencing. 6 Measurement that is rigorous but not burdensome is key to driving improvements in collaborative learning systems. 10…”

Section: Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research focused on improving access to services has found a number of interventions that can improve wait times and non-attendance. Examples include reminders and prompts, for example text message reminders 5 and prompt letters 6 ; increasing choice of appointment options; improving communication and explaining the purpose of the service. 1 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving access to services through a collaborative learning system at East London NHS Foundation Trust

et al. 2018

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Early intervention following initial referral into healthcare services can have a significant impact on the prognosis and outcomes of patients. Long waiting times and non-attendance can have an immediate and enduring negative impact on patients and healthcare service providers. The traditional management options in reducing waiting times have largely revolved around setting performance targets, providing financial incentives or additional resourcing. This large-scale quality improvement project aimed to reduce waiting times from referral to first appointment and non-attendance for a wide range of services providing primary and secondary care mental health and community health services at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). Fifteen community-based teams across ELFT came together with the shared goal of improving access. These teams were diverse in both nature and geography and included adult community mental health teams, child and adolescent mental health services, secondary care psychological therapy services, memory services, a musculoskeletal physiotherapy service and a sickle cell service. A collaborative learning system was developed to support the teams to come together at regular intervals, share data, test and scale-up ideas through quality improvement and have access to coaching from skilled improvement advisors in the ELFT central quality improvement team. Over the course of the 2-year project, waiting time from referral to first face-to-face appointment reduced from an average of 60.6 days to 46.7 days (a 23% reduction), non-attendance at first face-to-face appointment reduced from an average of 31.7% to an average of 20.5% (a 36% reduction), while referral volume increased from an average of 1021 per month to an average of 1280 per month (a 25% increase).

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“…Currently, patient reminder can be in the form of posted letters, telephone calls or electronic text messaging. All of them showed improvement in attendance rate in different clinical settings and populations (13)(14)(15)(16). Text messaging was found to be the most cost-effective method (17).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Use of short message service (SMS) reminders to improve the attendance rate of diabetes-related multidisciplinary services in a primary care clinic a randomized controlled trial

DAO

Wong

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Background: Non-attendance of various non-physician-led multidisciplinary (NPLM) services causes wastage of health care resources. This study determined whether using mobile phone text message reminders by Short Message Service (SMS) in patients with type II diabetes attending a primary care clinic resulted in higher attendance rates of NPLM services when compared with those without SMS reminders. Method: A single centre randomized-controlled trial included adult subjects with type II diabetes who could read Chinese or English, possessed an SMS-capable phone and booked at least NPLM service appointments in study site. The main outcomes were comparing attendance rates between the control group and the intervention group of various NPLM services including nurse complication screening, nurse individual counselling, multidisciplinary group education, dietitian counselling, physiotherapist service, retinopathy screening by optometrist and blood taking sessions Results: 297 eligible subjects were approached, 15 were excluded and 11 refused to participate. 271 subjects were recruited (response rate 96%). Their mean (± standard deviation) age was 63.3±11.3. Their mean duration of DM was 6.9±5.3 years with mean HbA1c 7.37±1.32%. They were randomly assigned to intervention (N=135) or control (N=136) group. The Intervention groups received a standard SMS reminder included appointment name, date and time 24-72 hours prior to the scheduled appointment. The Control groups received no reminder. 733 appointments (intervention N=372, control N=361) were analysed. More subjects used smartphone (82.2%) than mobile phone without internet access (17.8%). All SMS were successfully delivered for the 372 appointments with no adverse event reported. The overall attendance rates were 92.7% in the intervention group and 83.1% in the control group (Odds ratio, OR 2.60, 95% confidence interval, CI 1.61-4.19, p<0.001). In subgroup analysis, SMS reminders were particularly useful in reminding nurse clinic (OR 3.06, 95% CI 1.22-7.66, p=0.017) and optometrist clinic (OR 2.73, 95% CI 1.07-7.01, p=0.037). Conclusion: SMS reminder is a reliable method to increase overall attendance rates and health service utilization of NPLM DM services in outpatient setting.

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Prompt letters to reduce non-attendance: applying evidence based practice

Cited by 20 publications

References 12 publications

Predictors of clinic non‐attendance: opportunities to improve patient outcomes in colorectal cancer

Predictors of clinic non‐attendance: opportunities to improve patient outcomes in colorectal cancer

Improving access to services through a collaborative learning system at East London NHS Foundation Trust

Use of short message service (SMS) reminders to improve the attendance rate of diabetes-related multidisciplinary services in a primary care clinic a randomized controlled trial

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