A familiar issue of absence needs to be addressed as doctors and patients alike are affected by the consequences of missed appointments. Only a fraction of appointments are being attended as scheduled; as a result, this creates unnecessary waiting where other patients could have been seen. This may be avoided with more communication channels being available to help patients feel more prepared whilst using modern technological platforms to alert them of upcoming appointments.
What Are The Benefits Of Alerts?
Alerts assist in a plethora of ways; helping patients so they can be more prepared by accessing pre-appointment information. Furthermore, this can prove invaluable to patients who are nervous about their visit. As the alerts are tailored, it has shown an increase in patient engagement with 42% of text reminders confirmed and 71% of answered phone calls being confirmed.
What Methods Of Contact Are Available To Patients?
As a result, the tools available have assisted in patients being more involved in order to manage their appointments.
With a range of platforms, patients can have control over how they are contacted. This may be via:
- Text alerts
- Phone calls
- By a purpose built app.
See more information available by clicking the link for healthcare reminder systems.
How Is The Information Managed?
The contact required for text alerts is to help make appointments manageable, this includes interactive options such as allowing patients to re-schedule appointments. Additionally, assistance is available to help patients locate GP clinics by providing directions upon request. There are multiple requirements for each individual and tending to these could help the appointment process in order to become an efficient one.
The result is that people feel more informed and are being proactive even before the initial appointment date. This approach is to prevent further gaps in communication so that appointments are still suitable for patients and doctors can receive contact to make them aware if an appointment needs to be changed in advance.
In order to protect privacy and safeguard patients, the information is treated as sensitive as to ensure it meets standards regarding safety. All messages are HITECH- and HIPAA-compliant so as to allow people the power to feel more at ease when arranging the appointment and to prevent the information being shared or leaked unethically without permission.
Conclusion
In response to the lack of attendance at clinics, an increasing amount of different methods are still being explored in order to decrease missed appointments.
Therefore, the effort has been made to use multiple platforms to encourage efficient communication between doctors and patients as the solution may require patients to have more control. The process is still ongoing; as quint essentially, not all patients have set up alerts as of yet. However, as more options do become available, an expanding variety of patient needs will be met in order to prevent the problem in the future.
By involving a purpose-built app, the alerts are becoming increasingly efficient and more adapted to suit a more time constrained and modernised society’s needs without limiting them as not all patients benefit from the more modernised methods. Many patients are still able to get assistance from the variety of choices by setting telephone call alerts as their preferred form of contact if they are less technologically inclined which can help cater for more people’s needs.
In summary, new advances will continue so as to allow doctors and patients to have an impact in facing the issue with greater success, with the aim of having more appointments kept.