Ryu Do-Hyeon, Kwon Ryeok-Hwan
Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Incheon National University, 119, Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, 22012, Republic of Korea.
Decision Intelligence Lab, Tech. Innovation Group, Korea Telecom, 151, Taebong-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul, 06763, Republic of Korea.
Sci Rep. 2025 Sep 1;15(1):32162. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-16648-4.
Effective patient outreach is critical in preventive healthcare, particularly for managing high-risk populations susceptible to chronic conditions such as hypertension. This study evaluates the effectiveness of alternative communication strategies for improving the initial patient contact process at the Gimhae Public Health Center in South Korea. The current telephone-based outreach approach yields a low response rate (2%), underscoring the need for a more efficient engagement framework. Through a field experiment involving 480 high-risk individuals, we compare the effectiveness of two intervention strategies: (1) SMS notifications preceding phone calls and (2) customized health discussions tailored to patients' medical records. Empirical analysis reveals that SMS notifications significantly increase patient response rates, while customized health discussions increase the likelihood of patient follow-up visits. These findings provide evidence-based recommendations for optimizing patient engagement strategies in public health settings, demonstrating the value of targeted communication interventions in chronic disease prevention. The study contributes to the broader discourse on service design in healthcare by presenting a scalable framework for improving patient outreach in public health institutions.
有效的患者外展服务在预防性医疗保健中至关重要，尤其是对于管理易患高血压等慢性病的高危人群。本研究评估了韩国金海公共卫生中心用于改善初始患者接触流程的替代沟通策略的有效性。当前基于电话的外展方法响应率较低（2%），这凸显了需要一个更有效的参与框架。通过一项涉及480名高危个体的实地实验，我们比较了两种干预策略的有效性：（1）电话呼叫前的短信通知和（2）根据患者病历定制的健康讨论。实证分析表明，短信通知显著提高了患者响应率，而定制的健康讨论增加了患者后续就诊的可能性。这些发现为优化公共卫生环境中的患者参与策略提供了基于证据的建议，证明了针对性沟通干预在慢性病预防中的价值。该研究通过提出一个可扩展的框架来改善公共卫生机构中的患者外展服务，为医疗保健服务设计的更广泛讨论做出了贡献。
