Improvement Intervention in 2009
Teen Clinic and New Patient Appointments
Aim: Increase utilization of Teen Clinic and decrease no shows of new patients
Measures: Number of scheduled and missed appointments.
Study Question: Would reminder calls work for our medically underserved, urban Latino/immigrant population, given our historical problems with reaching patients by phone, due to incorrect or disconnected phone numbers.
Changes Tested: All Teen Clinic patients were called by their support worker before the Teen Clinic. All New Patients were called 3 days prior to their appointment
Some Details on the Changes:
- Calls were successful despite initial concerns about the accuracy of phone numbers in a population which often is between phone services.
- Calls resulted in a downward trend and shift in no-shows for Teen Clinic Patients from over 30% to 10%
- Additional benefit of increased cancellations and rescheduled appointments, allowing better use of the teen clinic appointment slots.
- Calls of new patients resulted in a downward trend in no shows to 10% from over 20%.
- Spread of change: use of reminder calls to be also utilized for well-patient visits following the implementation of an automated calling system.
