SMS reminder service makes an impact

Shannon Howard (left) and Pat Broad from Caboolture Hospital’s Specialist Outpatients Unit

For the first time, the monthly fail to attend rates for new gastroenterology outpatient appointments at Caboolture Hospital was zero in November 2015, thanks to a new SMS and an automated telephone confirmation service.

The introduction of the new appointment system also has reduced the percentage of patients failing to attend specialist outpatient appointments from 6% in May and 2% in November.

The success of the new process has been so great that specialist appointments are no longer being wasted and this has led to a significant reduction in long waits lists for respiratory, gynaecology and rheumatology outpatient appointments.

The SMS system has been snapped up for antenatal, and other specialist outpatient and allied health appointments.