[The telephone accessibility of the prior appointment program].

OBJECTIVE

To determine the ease of access by telephone when making medical appointments.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional, observational, random sample.

SETTING

Primary care, Murcia Region.

PATIENTS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS

Centres with a previous appointments system (n = 25) and a random sample of the 276 practitioners involved (n = 97). We ruled out 4 practitioners for not having a telephone in their outer consulting room.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

We made telephone calls until we had obtained appointments with each of the practitioners, across three hour blocks. The result was an average of 2,333 calls/appointment, with a deflection of 2,271. The mode and median were 1, and the range 26. We found differences in the distribution of the calls across the three blocks (p < 0.05). Comparing rural centres with urban, we found a lower average number of calls in the first two blocks (p < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

Telephone accessibility is at an appropriate level, both in rural and urban areas.