The effect of telephone reminders on attendance in respiratory outpatient clinics.
BACKGROUND
Patient non-attendance is an area of concern for all health care providers. A randomized controlled trial was undertaken to investigate whether reminder telephone calls improved attendance at respiratory outpatient clinics in the English National Health Service (NHS).


METHODS
Patients were randomly allocated into one of two groups, either telephone reminder group or usual care. The telephone reminder group received a reminder telephone call between 9 am and 5 pm during the week prior to their appointment. Attendance and demographic information (age, sex, diagnosis and home postcode) were recorded.


RESULTS
A total of 504 patients were recruited, 258 patients were allocated to the control group and 246 patients were allocated to the telephone reminder group. Fifty-eight percent of the patients allocated to the telephone reminder group were not contactable. Within the telephone reminder group, of the 104 patients who could be contacted, 86% attended. There was a significant 15% increase in attendance in the contacted group (n = 104) when compared both with the control group (71%, n = 258) and with the patients who could not be contacted (68%, n = 142) (P = 0.007; P = 0.004). It was estimated that the cost of telephoning 200 patients could be offset by preventing one non-attendance.


CONCLUSIONS
Routine telephoning of outpatients should become standard practice if reducing non-attendance is thought to be desirable, but general practitioner (GP) referral letters and hospital records of current hospital outpatients need to include an up-to-date telephone number. Consideration should be given to 'out-of-hours' reminder calls to maximize the contact rate.
Roberts
Nicola
N
NHLI Division, Imperial College London, Respiratory Health Services Research Group, Charing Cross Hospital, London, UK.
Meade
Karen
K
Partridge
Martyn
M
D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D017010:Reminder Systems / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012120:Respiration Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013689:Telephone; D006113:United Kingdom