Inability to follow up ED patients by telephone: there must be 50 ways to leave your number.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the ability to complete follow-up home telephone calls to ED patients.


METHODS
A retrospective review of the ability to reach 4,741 patients called during a posttreatment patient satisfaction survey of visits to a suburban community hospital ED.


RESULTS
Only 54.9% of all patients called could be contacted after three or fewer phone calls. Of the 2,139 (45.1%) who could not be reached, there was no answer for 1,260 (58.9%), despite three telephone calls to a number currently in service. A significant minority (21.1%) had given nonworking numbers. Another 12.4% indicated that no one by the name of the patient lived at the number called and 2.9% of the respondents alleged that the patient was deceased.


CONCLUSIONS
Almost half of the patients who present to the ED and supply home telephone numbers give telephone numbers at which they cannot be reached in follow-up. Using telephone follow-up alone to reach patients seen in the ED may be an unreliable method of communication.
Adams
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Northwestern University Medical School, Division of Emergency Medicine, Chicago, IL 60611-2914, USA.
Thompson
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DA
D003625:Data Collection; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006764:Hospitals, Community; D006801:Humans; D010349:Patient Compliance; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013689:Telephone