Weingarten N, Meyer D L, Schneid J A
Maine-Dartmouth Family Practice Residency, Augusta 04330, USA.
J Am Board Fam Pract. 1997 Nov-Dec;10(6):407-11.
Missed appointments can affect patient health, disrupt schedules, and result in poor utilization of resources, increased workload for staff and physicians, and lost learning opportunities for residents in training programs.
The setting was an established community-hospital-based family practice residency practice averaging 25,000 outpatient visits per year in a small northern New England town. Data from a computer-scheduling system and hospital mainframe, as well as demographic and other information contained in billing records and patient schedules, were abstracted for patients who scheduled 3962 appointments on 36 sampled days during 1995.
The missed appointment rate during the study period was 6.7 percent. Characteristics associated with missed appointments were younger patient age (17 to 30 years), Medicaid coverage or lack of health insurance, and appointments scheduled with first-year residents or medical students.
Attention should be given to those patients most likely to miss appointments and, in training programs, to patients seeing first-year residents and medical students. It is possible that our relatively low missed appointment rate overall resulted from the nature of the practice and its environment.
预约失约可能影响患者健康、扰乱日程安排，并导致资源利用不佳、工作人员和医生工作量增加以及培训项目中的住院医师失去学习机会。
研究地点是新英格兰北部一个小镇上一家成熟的以社区医院为基础的家庭医学住院医师培训诊所，每年平均有25000人次门诊。从计算机排班系统和医院主机提取数据，以及账单记录和患者日程安排中包含的人口统计学和其他信息，这些数据来自1995年36个抽样日预约了3962次就诊的患者。
研究期间的预约失约率为6.7%。与预约失约相关的特征包括患者年龄较小（17至30岁）、医疗补助覆盖或无医疗保险，以及预约了一年级住院医师或医学生的就诊。
应关注那些最有可能失约的患者，在培训项目中，应关注看一年级住院医师和医学生的患者。我们总体相对较低的预约失约率可能是由诊所的性质及其环境所致。
