Abstract

Introduction: Missed appointments, or no-show appointments, can be detrimental to the patient and office alike in the outpatient setting. No-show appointments decrease patient satisfaction, increase acute episodic visits, and decrease office revenue.

Method: This project aims to reduce no-show appointments by two percent in an outpatient rheumatology office through utilizing an existing phone call reminder system and implementing a text message reminder system.

Results: After the implementation of the text messaging reminder system, contrary to the project's aim of decreasing no-show appointments by two percent, no-show appointments were decreased by 1.1%.

Conclusion: The findings of this quality improvement project show that text messaging reminders do in fact decrease no-show appointment rates. Albeit this project did not reach the two-percent goal that was set, there was still a decrease in no-show appointments. Further examination of the text messaging reminder system is warranted.

Description

Tool(s) used: Roger's Innovation Diffusion Theory and the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Model.

Callie Soltero

Author Details

Callie Soltero, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC

Sigma Membership

Lambda Rho at-Large

Type

DNP Capstone Project

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quality Improvement

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Missed Appointments, No-Show Patients, Text Messaging Reminders, Missed Appointment Reduction

Advisors

Kines, Erica||de Tantillo, Lila

Advisor

Erica Kines

Second Advisor

Lila de Tantillo

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Jacksonville University

Degree Year

2021

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

Faculty Approved: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Self-submission

Date of Issue

2021-11-17

Full Text of Presentation

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