| Title |
Getting patients in the door: medical appointment reminder preferences
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Patient preference and adherence, January 2017
|
| DOI | 10.2147/ppa.s117396 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Trisha M Crutchfield, Christine E Kistler |
| Abstract |
Between 23% and 34% of outpatient appointments are missed annually. Patients who frequently miss medical appointments have poorer health outcomes and are less likely to use preventive health care services. Missed appointments result in unnecessary costs and organizational inefficiencies. Appointment reminders may help reduce missed appointments; particular types may be more effective than other types. We used a survey with a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to learn why individuals miss appointments and to assess appointment reminder preferences. We enrolled a national sample of adults from an online survey panel to complete demographic and appointment habit questions as well as a 16-task DCE designed in Sawtooth Software's Discover tool. We assessed preferences for four reminder attributes - initial reminder type, arrival of initial reminder, reminder content, and number of reminders. We derived utilities and importance scores. We surveyed 251 adults nationally, with a mean age of 43 (range 18-83) years: 51% female, 84% White, and 8% African American. Twenty-three percent of individuals missed one or more appointments in the past 12 months. Two primary reasons given for missing an appointment include transportation problems (28%) and forgetfulness (26%). Participants indicated the initial reminder type (21%) was the most important attribute, followed by the number of reminders (10%). Overall, individuals indicated a preference for a single reminder, arriving via email, phone call, or text message, delivered less than 2 weeks prior to an appointment. Preferences for reminder content were less clear. The number of missed appointments and reasons for missing appointments are consistent with prior research. Patient-centered appointment reminders may improve appointment attendance by addressing some of the reasons individuals report missing appointments and by meeting patients' needs. Future research is necessary to determine if preferred reminders used in practice will result in improved appointment attendance in clinical settings. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Zimbabwe | 1 | 50% |
| Unknown | 1 | 50% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 1 | 50% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 50% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 83 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 1 | 1% |
| Unknown | 82 | 99% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 22 | 27% |
| Student > Bachelor | 11 | 13% |
| Researcher | 9 | 11% |
| Student > Postgraduate | 8 | 10% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 6 | 7% |
| Other | 10 | 12% |
| Unknown | 17 | 20% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 20 | 24% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 16 | 19% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 6 | 7% |
| Social Sciences | 5 | 6% |
| Computer Science | 5 | 6% |
| Other | 13 | 16% |
| Unknown | 18 | 22% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 January 2017.
All research outputs
#15,879,822
of 25,584,565 outputs
Outputs from Patient preference and adherence
#862
of 1,733 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#236,934
of 422,901 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Patient preference and adherence
#22
of 34 outputs
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We're also able to compare this research output to 34 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.