Impact of Email Reminders on No-Show Rates for Appointments in an Urology Department

NCT06114602 | Unknown

• 1 other identifier: 6878
• Study Type: observational
• Target: 1,892
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

In this observational study, the investigators will analyze all patients who have scheduled appointments in the Urology Department from twelve months before the start date of the e-mail reminder dispatch (01/02/2023) to twelve months after (01/01/2022 to 31/12/2023). The investigators will divide them into two groups based on whether they have received the reminder or not. The investigators are going to compare the rate of no-show rates in both groups and then obtain the relative risk of the association between appointment reminders and no-show rates.

Conditions

No-Show Patients; Reminder Systems

Keywords

Non-Attendance, Patient; Reminder Systems; No-Show Patients; Appointments and Schedules; Treatment Adherence and Compliance

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Proportion of scheduled appointment no-show rate

  Proportion of no-show outpatient appointments

  14 days

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Proportion of scheduled appointment cancelations

  14 days

Study Arms (2)

Pre-Intervention

Patients who have a medical appointment with a urologist in HIBA but did not receive any reminder.

Post-Intervention

Patients who have a medical appointment with a urologist in HIBA but did receive an email reminder of the appointment.

Behavioral: E-Mail Reminder

Interventions

E-Mail Reminder BEHAVIORAL

Patients who have an appointment (either face-to-face or teleconsultation) scheduled with a doctor at the Hospital receive an e-mail at the time of their request as well as 14 days and 48 hours prior to the appointment, reminding them of the appointment time and the place where they have to go. In addition, a button has been added to the e-mail so that the patient can click on it and cancel it directly in a simple way.

Post-Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)
• Sampling Method: Probability Sample

Study Population

The target population of the study corresponds to scheduled outpatient appointments at the urology department. The accessible population are the appointments requested for care in the Urology Deparment of HIBA, with an assigned date between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2023 inclusive (24 months in total).

You may qualify if:

• We will include all patients over 18 years who have been assigned appointments or overappointments, scheduled or with note, in the Urology Department of HIBA between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2023.

You may not qualify if:

• Teleconsultation appointments and face-to-face consultations made through spontaneous overappointments or spontaneous demand will be excluded. The latter two cases are not considered to be appointments assigned to the patient prior to the consultation, but are assigned at the same time the patient presents his or her request. The electronic information system has no way of knowing in advance that this patient is going to be seen and therefore has no way of sending a reminder.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires: lead

Study Sites (1)

Hospital Italiano de Buenos

CABA, Argentina

RECRUITING

Related Publications (12)

• Parker MM, Moffet HH, Schillinger D, Adler N, Fernandez A, Ciechanowski P, Karter AJ. Ethnic differences in appointment-keeping and implications for the patient-centered medical home--findings from the Diabetes Study of Northern California (DISTANCE). Health Serv Res. 2012 Apr;47(2):572-93. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6773.2011.01337.x. Epub 2011 Oct 27.

  PMID: 22091785 BACKGROUND

• Nguyen DL, Dejesus RS. Increased frequency of no-shows in residents' primary care clinic is associated with more visits to the emergency department. J Prim Care Community Health. 2010 Apr 1;1(1):8-11. doi: 10.1177/2150131909359930.

  PMID: 23804061 BACKGROUND

• Colubi MM, Perez-Elias MJ, Elias L, Pumares M, Muriel A, Zamora AM, Casado JL, Dronda F, Lopez D, Moreno S; SEAD Study Group. Missing scheduled visits in the outpatient clinic as a marker of short-term admissions and death. HIV Clin Trials. 2012 Sep-Oct;13(5):289-95. doi: 10.1310/hct1305-289.

  PMID: 23134630 BACKGROUND

• Alyahya M, Hijazi HH, Nusairat FT. The Effects of Negative Reinforcement on Increasing Patient Adherence to Appointments at King Abdullah University Hospital in Jordan. Inquiry. 2016 Jul 20;53:0046958016660411. doi: 10.1177/0046958016660411. Print 2016.

  PMID: 27444505 BACKGROUND

• Kheirkhah P, Feng Q, Travis LM, Tavakoli-Tabasi S, Sharafkhaneh A. Prevalence, predictors and economic consequences of no-shows. BMC Health Serv Res. 2016 Jan 14;16:13. doi: 10.1186/s12913-015-1243-z.

  PMID: 26769153 BACKGROUND

• Giunta DH, Alonso Serena M. Nonattendance rates of scheduled outpatient appointments in a university general hospital. Int J Health Plann Manage. 2019 Oct;34(4):1377-1385. doi: 10.1002/hpm.2797. Epub 2019 May 7.

  PMID: 31062463 BACKGROUND

• Briatore A, Tarsetti EV, Latorre A, Gonzalez Bernaldo de Quiros F, Luna D, Fuentes NA, Elizondo CM, Baum A, Alonso Serena M, Giunta DH. Causes of appointment attendance, nonattendance, and cancellation in outpatient consultations at a university hospital. Int J Health Plann Manage. 2020 Jan;35(1):207-220. doi: 10.1002/hpm.2890. Epub 2019 Aug 26.

  PMID: 31448466 BACKGROUND

• Ramakrishnan SA, Murphy E, Barry M. Non-attendance at clinics: a waste of resource. Ir J Med Sci. 2004 Jul-Sep;173(3):172. doi: 10.1007/BF03167936. No abstract available.

  PMID: 15693391 BACKGROUND

• Wilson R, Winnard Y. Causes, impacts and possible mitigation of non-attendance of appointments within the National Health Service: a literature review. J Health Organ Manag. 2022 Aug 4;ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). doi: 10.1108/JHOM-11-2021-0425.

  PMID: 35918282 BACKGROUND

• Wolthers OD. Non-attendance in a secondary paediatric referral centre. Dan Med J. 2018 Nov;65(11):A5515.

  PMID: 30382021 BACKGROUND

• Car J, Gurol-Urganci I, de Jongh T, Vodopivec-Jamsek V, Atun R. Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Jul 11;(7):CD007458. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD007458.pub2.

  PMID: 22786507 BACKGROUND

• Boksmati N, Butler-Henderson K, Anderson K, Sahama T. The Effectiveness of SMS Reminders on Appointment Attendance: a Meta-Analysis. J Med Syst. 2016 Apr;40(4):90. doi: 10.1007/s10916-016-0452-2. Epub 2016 Feb 6.

  PMID: 26852337 BACKGROUND

MeSH Terms

Conditions

No-Show Patients; Treatment Adherence and Compliance

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Patient Compliance; Patient Acceptance of Health Care; Health Behavior; Behavior

Study Officials

• Diego H Giunta, PhD

  Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires

  STUDY DIRECTOR

Central Study Contacts

Diego Santillan, MD

CONTACT

+5491162504033; diego.santillan@hospitalitaliano.org.ar

Study Design

• Study Type: observational
• Observational Model: COHORT
• Time Perspective: RETROSPECTIVE
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: October 29, 2023
• First Posted: November 2, 2023
• Study Start: January 1, 2022
• Primary Completion: December 31, 2023
• Study Completion: March 30, 2024
• Last Updated: November 7, 2023

Record last verified: 2023-11

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

AR (1)