The effectiveness of appointment reminders in a hospital outpatient department

This project took place at the Outpatient Department, Merced Community Medical Center, a 176 bed acute care hospital. Here a study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of mailed and telephone reminders in reducing the broken appointment rate of scheduled patients at the General Medical Clinic. Additionally, the cost effectiveness of both reminder systems were compared. As a result of the two month project, it was determined that both methods of appointment reminders were successful in reducing the broken appointment rate. The broken appointment rate for the three month period prior to this project was 31.3% of the scheduled appointments. Letter reminders were successful in reducing this rate to 21.8% and telephone reminders reduced the broken appointment rate to 9.6% of the scheduled appointments during the two month period of this project. There would be a net gain in operational revenue as a result of implementing these methods into the Hospital Outpatient Department and the Family Practice Center. It. would be expected that net revenue per month would increase $231.00 by implementing a mailed reminder system. Telephone reminders would be increased $1,966.00 as a result of implementation.