Authors (including presenting author) :
POON HY, CHU KM, WONG LS, HUI MY, CHEK CW, CHOI YH, CHIU LF
Affiliation :
Department of Radiology & Imaging, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Introduction :
In the Department of Radiology and Imaging, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, we aim to deliver quality and cost effective radiological services to patients and clinical partners in a safe environment, to promote learning culture, and to apply new advances in medical imaging technology to pursue ultimate excellence. The demand for breast imaging increases rapidly due to escalating breast cancer incidence, aging population and increase in health awareness of general population. However, we are also facing serious manpower shortage, hence, every appointment time slot is precious. In order to reduce the default rate and deliver quality radiology service to patients, a simple telephone reminder service program was designed.
Objectives :
1. To determine the success rate of contact patients by 2 telephone calls. 2. To release the precious appointment time slots as some patients forgot to cancel or decided to reschedule their appointments. 3. To determine whether telephone reminder can reduce the default rate of scheduled breast imaging.
Methodology :
- From March to December 2021, we made telephone calls to all breast imaging patients at a week prior to the appointment date. - All telephone number was sourced from Radiology Information System, 2 telephone calls were made for each patient. - People were reminded to come and bring old private films and reports for correlation, if any. - 5 responses came out: 1. Reminded patient, 2. Leave voice message, 3. Cannot leave voice message, 4. Reschedule appointment as requested by patient, 5. Cancel appointment as requested by patient. - Reasons for inconcordance of number of patients called and number of total appointment booked. • Some patients were not called if the appointment booking was done less than one week. • Some patients requested to reschedule or cancel appointment. - The default rates were compared with the duration 1 March 2020 to 31 December 2020.
Result & Outcome :
Result: - From 1 March 2021 to 31 December 2021, 1,755 patients were called under this program. - Average spent 2minutes per patient, around 12-18 minutes per day, total spent around 3,510 minutes in 10 months. - 1,343(77%) patients were called successfully in 2 calls. - Release precious slots from 43 patients who requested to reschedule appointment and 32 patients who requested to cancel appointment, 75/75(100%) were filled by other E1 cases(E1 request category: within 1 month). - The data of “March 2020-December2020 default rate” (without telephone reminder) and “March 2021-December 2021 default rate” (with telephone reminder) are analysed. “March 2020-December2020 default rate”: Mean(SD)= 19.2%(0.0329), Median= 19.5%, IQR= 5%. “March 2021-December2021 default rate”: Mean(SD)= 7.7%(0.0211), Median= 7%, IQR= 4%.
[Mar:22% to 10%(-55%), Apr:14% to 6%(-57%), May:18% to 7%(-62%), Jun:20% to 5%(-77%), Jul:23% to 6%(-72%), Aug:19% to 9%(-53%), Sep:20% to 11%(-47%), Oct:17% to 7%(-60%), Nov:15% to 6%(-59%), Dec:24% to 10%(-60%)]
It shows that the telephone reminder programme significantly reduced the default rate (P<0.05). Conclusions: - Almost 80% success rate of contact patients by 2 telephone calls. - Successfully release precious appointment time slots for other patients in need. - Telephone reminder program successfully and significantly reduced the default rate of breast imaging appointment. - Though not within the scope of this study, patients were reminded to bring private film and report for correlation as well, so a better quality radiology examination may possibly be achieved. - The overall result proved this program can maximize human and equipment resource utilization and efficiency.
