Sarmiento Gallego de la Sacristana M, Martínez Sánchez E, Marín López J, López-Picazo Ferrer J L, Albaladejo Nicolás E, Fernández Saura M R
Gerencia de Atención Primaria, Sector de Murcia.
Aten Primaria. 1993 Apr 30;11(7):354-6.
To determine the ease of access by telephone when making medical appointments.
Cross-sectional, observational, random sample.
Primary care, Murcia Region.
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.
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).
Telephone accessibility is at an appropriate level, both in rural and urban areas.
