Can Text Messages Improve Attendance to Primary Care Appointments in Underserved Populations?
We explored whether text message (TM) reminders could be used at a community health center (CHC) to improve primary care appointment attendance in adult patients. Over six months, we allocated 8,425 appointments to intervention and 2,679 to control. The proportion of no-shows in the intervention was 18.0% vs. 19.8% in control (p = .106). Among intervention appointments, 1,431 did not have a cell phone, 4,955 did not respond to the consent TM, and 231 declined TMs. The proportion of no-shows for the 1,309 appointments who received TM was 13.7% compared with 20.2% in a matched control group (p = .001). However, of 81 surveyed patients who did not respond to the consent TM, 64 (93%) wished to receive TMs. In conclusion, patients who received TM demonstrated improved attendance to their appointments. TM might be an effective supplemental appointment reminder method in a subpopulation of CHC patients and it should be explored in future research.
Sanja
S
Percac-Lima
Daniel E
DE
Singer
Patrick R
PR
Cronin
Yuchiao
Y
Chang
Adrian H
AH
Zai
D000328:Adult; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D006801:Humans; D011320:Primary Health Care; D017010:Reminder Systems; D060145:Text Messaging; D035862:Vulnerable Populations