Postgraduate Program in Health Informatics, Federal University of São Paulo, Rua Botucatu 862, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Int J Med Inform. 2010 Jan;79(1):65-70. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.09.001. Epub 2009 Sep 26.
Nonattendance for appointments remains a challenge to health care managers and providers. The objective of this article is to present the results of a study on the impact of appointment reminders sent as short message service text messages to patients' cell phones on nonattendance rates at outpatient clinics in São Paulo, Brazil.
Data were collected on scheduled appointments in four medical clinics using Clinic Manager or Clinic Web systems that can send automated messages to patients. Data on appointment attendance were collected from these systems.
More than 29,000 appointments were scheduled between July 1, 2007, and May 31, 2008, and for 7890 of them a text message reminder was sent to the patient's cell phone. The rates of nonattendance were compared between those who were sent and those who were not sent a text message as an appointment reminder.
The nonattendance reduction rates for appointments at the four outpatient clinics studied were 0.82% (p= .590), 3.55% (p= .009), 5.75% (p= .022), and 14.49% (p= < .001).
The study results indicate that sending appointment reminders as text messages to patients' cell phones is an effective strategy to reduce nonattendance rates. When patients attend their appointments, the facility providing care and the patients receiving uninterrupted care benefit.
失约仍是医疗保健管理者和提供者面临的一项挑战。本文旨在展示一项研究结果，该研究评估了向巴西圣保罗的门诊患者手机发送短信息服务（SMS）文本消息提醒对预约失约率的影响。
使用 Clinic Manager 或 Clinic Web 系统收集四个医疗诊所的预约数据，这些系统可向患者自动发送消息。从这些系统中收集关于预约就诊的数据。
2007 年 7 月 1 日至 2008 年 5 月 31 日期间共安排了 29000 多次预约，其中 7890 次向患者的手机发送了短信提醒。将收到和未收到短信提醒的预约失约率进行了比较。
在研究的四个门诊中，预约失约率降低了 0.82%（p=.590）、3.55%（p=.009）、5.75%（p=.022）和 14.49%（p= <.001）。
研究结果表明，向患者手机发送预约提醒短信是降低失约率的有效策略。当患者按时就诊时，提供护理的机构和患者都能受益于持续的护理。
