appointment reminders Archives - Page 3 of 4

Reaching out

A study in the USA has revealed the benefits of automated telephone calls for patients with hypertension. Taking a sample of 64,773 hypertension patients, half were sent a recorded phone message inviting them to have their blood pressure monitored at a clinic whilst the rest received no such invitation.

After four weeks it was found that 32.5% of those who had received a call had controlled their blood pressure against a base of 23.7% for those who had not received a call. Although researchers did not collect data on measures taken by patients to control blood pressure it is believed the calls played an important part in raising patient awareness.

Certainly this study mirrors the findings of other surveys in the way in which patient care can be improved by a simple call. Whether by encouraging patients to have a check up or replacing costly health visits with a simple call, the telephone is increasingly playing its part in enhancing health care.

One particularly successful way in which phone calls are being brought into the front line is in reminding patients about their appointments. Whether issued via automated phone message or by text, a simple reminder can make a substantial contribution towards reducing the number of “no shows.”

This has two benefits. Firstly it encourages patients to attend booked appointments and secondly it encourages them to notify the health practice should they be unable to attend for any reason. With an early warning of a cancelled appointment the practice has the chance to book in another patient; thus benefitting the practice, the patient and boosting the overall level of patient care.

In our ever busier lives, it is inevitable that we will forget appointments from time to time and an automated phone or text message can be that vital memory jogger which we all need. Health care practitioners from opticians to physiotherapists and even vets are using messaging for everything from a reminder to pick up some new medication or book a check up to reminders about appointments which have been made. For example this writer received a text from their vet recently reminding them to pick up a fresh batch of worming medicine for a pet.

In summary, phone reminders can save “no shows, they can ensure patients receive the treatment which they need and they can help to keep health practitioners busy at all times.

Telephone triage

A survey of 1,195 GPs, practice managers and nurses by Campden Health has revealed that the use of telephone triage is gaining in popularity. 56% of practice managers polled revealed that some form of triage is used with 9% of practices triaging all of their patient calls.

Surprisingly those who practice triage reported a wide range of success with some reporting as much as 60% of patient problems being solved without the need to see a doctor whilst other practices only reported a 1% success rate. However 95% of respondents rated triage as either moderately or extremely successful so it is understandable why the practice is spreading across the NHS.

One drawback uncovered by the survey was the fact that in 13% of cases untrained receptionists were being used to conduct the triage and overall 48% had not received any telephone triage training. Nevertheless with surveys showing that doctors daily see 6-10 patients who have no medical needs, if triage can eliminate these unnecessary appointments it will free up valuable treatment time for those who are in need of care as well as more speedily directing patients to more appropriate resources such as social services or other health professionals.

When it comes to other health services, using the services of a trained receptionist to take calls and make appointments can also make a difference to the working day. Virtual receptionist services which use friendly and well trained staff can help healthcare professionals to provide the best level of service which they can to their patients. With no ringing telephone to interrupt treatments and a friendly receptionist taking care of appointment booking, message taking and appointment reminders, the health professional can carry out the task which they were trained for rather than become bogged down in administration.

Better still, a virtual assistant can help to keep the appointment book filled. Appointment reminders have been shown to increase attendance rates and in the event of a cancellation the receptionist will be on hand to take calls which could potentially fill the vacant slot. And with a trained virtual assistant the professional image of the health practice will be maintained.

I just called with a reminder

There are good calls and bad calls; calls you treasure, calls you feel are unwanted intrusions into your day and calls you will remember for the rest of your life. But from time to time a call arrives which is so useful that you are simply pleased to receive it.

We refer here to appointment reminders, those simple texts or automated calls which remind you that your doctor/dentist/hair or other appointment is due. They don’t take much but can play a huge part in ensuring that you do arrive at your appointment on time, thereby reducing the vast numbers of no-shows which daily cost health practitioners both time and money.

One recent convert to the benefits of automated reminders is the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. From the start of August, those with outpatient appointments will receive a communication a week before their appointment date, asking them to confirm, cancel or rearrange. The Trust hopes that this will make a dent in the 39,871 appointments which were missed in the last year.

In fact the trust has calculated that every no-show costs an average of £108 which means that the Trust spent over £4 million last year in dealing with those who failed to turn up for appointments, money which would have been better spent on providing treatment. In announcing the new service David Moss, deputy general manager for outpatients, Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “By making sure all of our appointments are used, we can see more patients and patients will be seen sooner.”

But it is not just hospitals and NHS trusts which are affected by no-shows. All health practitioners are similarly affected and for those providing direct-pay services such as physiotherapy, a no-show not only means another patient could have been treated, it also equates to a direct loss of income.

Contacting patients to remind them of their appointments can also take time out from that available for treatments. One solution is to use a virtual assistant service to both make appointments and to send out reminders. With diary management online the health practitioner can quickly view their upcoming appointments but still be free to maximise patient time. Add in a patient notes service and even more time can be found for the practitioner to do what they do best, treating patients.

Workout at work day

Workout at work day 2013 has been hailed as a success with hundreds of events taking place across the UK. From exercise classes and yoga to simple walks in the fresh air, the businesses taking part have all stepped up to recognise the benefits which they can gain through encouraging employees to exercise.

Organised by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), the day was billed as an opportunity for businesses to work with employees to develop a healthy lifestyle. The CSP encouraged businesses to call in a local physiotherapist to show how simple changes in exercise or working patterns can make a huge difference to staff wellbeing and attendance levels.

According to the CSP, poor work habits such as sitting for long periods, not taking breaks and working late can all increase the risk of musculoskeletal disorders and stress, depression or anxiety. This in turn can contribute to the millions of days lost every year due to employer-related ill health. Taking time out to encourage employees to work fitter can therefore make a huge difference to a business. In fact a report by The Work Foundation revealed that for every £1 spent on wellbeing initiatives, businesses gained £3 of benefits.

For physiotherapists too, this day brings the opportunity to make contact with businesses in their area. This brings multiple opportunities for closer working relationships including the possibility of arranging contracted physiotherapy and advice sessions for businesses. This type of service is already widely offered by other health-related practitioners such as chiropractors and is generally appreciated by employers and employees alike.

Of course this does raise the question of client contact when out of the office. There is no point in arranging a weekly session at a local business if this means other clients can’t make appointments. The solution is to use the services of a virtual assistant. When you can’t answer the phone the virtual assistant can step in, taking calls and messages and arranging appointments. This means that your business is never out of touch even if you are. Virtual assistants can also send out appointment reminders and organise patient records.

Workout at work day is a great reminder of the way in which health services can reach out and help people to achieve a better work/life balance. Using a virtual assistant service to help when out of contact also means that health practitioners themselves can balance their work, home and client needs.

Guarding your back

In celebration of Chiropractic Awareness Week 2013 the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has been encouraging parents to take care of their backs. According to the BCA, 79% of people have experienced back or neck pain at some point in their lives with 61% of those being parents.

More worrying for the parent/child relationship, 55% of parents reported that their back or neck pain prevented them from lifting or carrying their child. To help parents to prevent or minimise the effects of back pain the BCA has published some handy advice sheets on their website. The guides cover areas such as posture, stretching exercises, pregnancy, outdoor and indoor activities and play.

As you’d expect the BCA was not alone in promoting the Chiropractic Awareness Week which started on 15^th April. Chiropractors across the UK played their part in promoting the ways in which chiropractic treatments could help to treat or prevent back pain. With NHS commissioning for chiropractic treatments being limited, the majority of chiropractic patients tend to pay privately. This puts an added time pressure on chiropractors who not only have to provide the treatments but also manage their own administration as they care for multiple patients.

Making use of an efficient virtual service can take a lot of the pressure out of the administration burden and enable chiropractors to maximise their time with patients. Services such as telephone answering and diary management help the practice to present a professional image whilst minimising the time spent on administration or having to interrupt treatments to answer the phone. But it is the additional services offered by businesses such as Clinic Appointments which can also make a major difference to time management. SMS appointment reminders have been shown to boost patient attendance whilst digitising patient notes eliminates the time spent in searching through filing cabinets as the patient sits in the waiting room.

One of the BCA leaflets provides handy hints on protecting our backs when on the computer. For busy chiropractors and other health professionals we’d like to add one more item to the list and that is to reduce the time spent sitting down on the phone or computer and let our virtual assistants take the strain.

Cutting physiotherapy waiting times

A study led by Bristol University professor Chris Salisbury has shown that using the telephone to make initial physiotherapy assessments can cut down not only on missed appointments but also on waiting times. The trial compared the outcome for patients who were offered an initial telephone assessment against those who waited for a physiotherapist appointment.

The study concluded that some patients can be managed entirely by phone but that despite the faster access to treatment, overall satisfaction levels remained unchanged. However, the Bristol University press release did stress that this evaluation was only one element of an overall requirement to examine treatment options for an increasingly elderly and immobile population.

Interestingly Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust has also released a report which shows that using a follow up telephone service can cut down the number of wasted and missed appointments within its urology service. Whilst these are just two examples, they do illustrate the way in which the telephone is playing an increasingly important role in the health practitioner/ patient relationship.

However, the more that patients come to expect telephone communication, the more they will be dissatisfied when phone calls remain unanswered. This poses a dilemma for the health practitioner. On the one hand they are expected to be on hand for patient calls; on the other, they don’t want to interrupt consultations to answer the phone.

The answer is to delegate their phone answering and appointment booking service to a specialist virtual receptionist service. With the receptionist handling calls, making appointments and sending out reminders the health practitioner can concentrate on treating their patients. And if telephone consultations are on offer, these can be booked in the same way as any other face to face consultation. After all, even telephone consultations need to be paid for and managing these in the same way as ordinary consultations via a booking system helps to ensure that invoices are raised and that no income is lost.

Another advantage of offering pre-appointment phone consultations is that the physiotherapist or other health practitioner can gauge the optimum treatment time, meaning that diaries can be more effectively filled, reducing wasted time between appointments. Whether or not patients can be treated via the phone will depend very much on the nature of their problem but what is certain is using a virtual receptionist to answer the phone enables the practitioner to concentrate on treatment in all its forms and that can only be good for the patient and the health service provided.

Fit for the future?

The 2012 Hospital guide from Dr Foster makes very interesting reading. The headline statistics about hospital occupancy rates alone paints a picture of an NHS which is full to bursting. Against an ideal occupancy rate of 85%, the report shows that for 48 weeks a year most hospital trusts have a bed occupancy rate in excess of 90%.

This not only puts pressure on trust staff on a day to day basis, high occupancy levels mean that when a crisis hits there is little spare capacity to meet it. So, the current Norovirus outbreak which according to the HPA is already 72% up on last year is bad news indeed.

Unfortunately for NHS managers the Dr Foster report highlights one major bed blocker that could easily be avoided. Apparently 29% of beds are taken up by “patients whose admission might have been avoided if their care was better managed.” This includes patients who are readmitted shortly after discharge, patients who would have been better treated in the community and patients who could have been seen as day cases.

The report does conclude that efficient hospitals can deliver good quality care but that areas such as missed hospital appointments, unnecessary admissions, a lack of weekend care and keeping patients in too long (or conversely discharging them too soon) all need addressing. The report also highlights the number of follow up appointments which could easily have been replaced by a quick phone call or visit to a GP.

When looking at outpatient appointments the report also says that “both primary and secondary care providers can take measures to improve the proportion of patients who attend hospital outpatient appointments.” We have previously highlighted ways in which some providers are taking steps to address this issue, using simple methods such as sending appointment reminders by phone or text.

Patients failing to show up for appointments is an issue for everyone working in the healthcare field. For health practitioners who charge their patients direct, a no-show not only prevents another patient from being treated, it also costs the practitioner in lost revenue. That is one reason why an appointment reminder service can pay for itself in reducing no-shows and keeping treatment rates high. Allied to a virtual receptionist service which can take calls, make appointments and even manage patient records, a health practitioner can concentrate on treating the maximum number of patients and providing good quality care.

Combining therapies

We are constantly reminded about the way in which regular exercise can improve our overall health. Now researchers in America have published the results of a survey of 10,000 people into the benefits of exercise, for those taking statins to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease.

The researchers found that middle aged people who take regular exercise, such as 150 minutes of brisk walking or cycling per week, are 50% less likely to die in the next ten years than those who take statins and don’t exercise. Those who combined exercise with statins were 70% less likely to die in a ten year period than those who simply took statins.

The results add to a growing body of evidence on the way in which even modest amounts of exercise can help to lower cholesterol and prevent diseases such as diabetes from developing. In commenting on the study, Natasha Stewart, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation told the Daily Telegraph that the results showed that combining exercise and statins could “provide a winning combination to further improve your heart health, with higher intensity exercise possibly offering more protection.”

It is generally recommended that anyone with high levels of cholesterol or who has lived a sedentary lifestyle take advice from a health practitioner before starting on an exercise programme. This may not necessarily be the local GP, with many GP practices offering support services for a range of conditions. As with any health issue it is important to call on the service which is most appropriate and indeed the NHS Choose Well campaign is designed to help patients to choose the service which will meet their needs.

The aim of the Choose Well campaign is to free up A&E departments to concentrate on those who have a critical or life-threatening need whilst ensuring that all patients receive speedy treatment. For health practitioners such as osteopaths and physiotherapists this may result in patients taking more responsibility for their treatment and calling direct for appointments.

This is where a virtual appointment service such as Clinic Appointments can come in handy. With Clinic Appointments’ trained receptionists taking calls and making appointments, health practitioners can maximise treatment times whilst eliminating missed calls. So, whether you are treating patients who have responded to Choose Well and made appointments direct or coping with the aftermath of a sudden rise in exercise by the middle aged, you know you can concentrate on what you do best without worrying about diary management or missed calls.

Time to stop sitting around

A study from Leicester and Loughborough Universities has shown that sitting still for long periods of time can increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease and death. Whilst the trigger limit varies from person to person, those who sit for the longest are at greatest risk, with the strongest association being between sitting still and diabetes.

Dr Emma Wilmot who led the study said that “people convince themselves they are living a healthy lifestyle, doing their 30 minutes of exercise a day. But they need to think about the other 23.5 hours.” Suggestions to redress the balance include conducting standing meetings, walking at lunch time and typing whilst standing up.

There will be those working in some health fields who will greet the study with a wry smile. Health practitioners working in occupations such as physiotherapy or who offer beauty treatments can find themselves standing for long periods and so would welcome the chance to sit down at the end of a busy day. However, for them, the benefits of moving around during the day can be outweighed by the stress of having to catch up at the end of a day; with paperwork and telephone calls taking up time which would be better spent on leisure.

Those who are caught in this trap may well find that using the services of a virtual assistant can enable them to relax at the end of the day, rather than spend several hours on paperwork. Sometimes thought of as simply providing a telephone answering service, virtual assistants in fact do so much more. For example, taking advantage of diary management and patient records services means that patient notes will be organised and available at the touch of a button, appointment reminders and invoices sent out and the diary kept up to date.

This means that rather than turning round at the end of a day to remind clients of upcoming appointments , search out patient records for the next day and send out invoices, all the health practitioner needs to do is glance at their diary and then go home to a well earned rest. Add in the fact that whilst the health practitioner is working the virtual assistant is answering calls and filling up their diary and the overall effect is to reduce no shows and banish non-earning blank times during the day.

So whether the health practitioner is on their feet all day or not, using a virtual assistant service at least means the end of sitting around waiting for patients to show, and paperwork free evenings.

Prevention is better than cure

A disturbing report in The Lancet reveals that during the swine flu pandemic of 2009, preventative attitudes in the UK fell far short of those in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Japan or America. For example whilst 89% of Argentineans washed their hands or used sanitizer more regularly during the outbreak, only 53% of Britons did the same.

A similar pattern was seen in respect of covering up coughs and sneezes and avoiding hugging or kissing friends. The conclusion from the research is that Britons are less likely to adopt protective measures than people elsewhere. This has implications in respect of the way in which information on disease is disseminated.

In response to the belief that good hygiene habits are best instilled in the young, Global Handwashing Day on October 15^th will take place as the centre piece of a week of worldwide hygiene-based activities. Top of the agenda is an attempt to set a world record with schools across the UK all taking part in a hygiene lesson at 10am.

Of course, hygiene is not just confined to schools and the public at large. Health practitioners know only too well that hygienic practices form an essential ingredient of the customer experience. Whether treating a client for back pain, providing a beauty treatment or simply providing a consultation; if the ambience and surroundings are wrong then the treatment will suffer.

One of the key ingredients to providing a good client experience is to give the client the surety that your attention is solely focused on them. This means taking steps to ensure that consultations aren’t interrupted by telephone calls or other distractions. Using a virtual receptionist service means that calls are answered and appointments booked by the receptionist service without the need to interrupt treatments to answer the phone.

With a handy always on view diary system the health practitioner can see appointments at a glance and keep control of their day whilst maximising treatment times. Add in appointment reminders and invoicing and even more time can be spent on treating the patient.

In a time when effective diary management can make or break a health practice, using the services of a virtual receptionist can help to prevent no-shows and minimise empty hours. Working alongside the health practice, the virtual receptionist helps to ensure the client experience is a pleasant one and that is the first step on the way to an effective cure.

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