Abstract
Introduction
One of the common frustrations for staff in hospital clinics is the frequent disruption caused by failure of patients to turn up for their booked appointments. DNA high rates have an enormous impact on the healthcare system in terms of cost and waiting time, significantly adding to delays along the patient pathway. We need to know the most common causes for non attendance and hence modify or put new protocol to deal with this problem.
Methods
70 (DNAs) patients from orthopaedic clinics during May 2008 were contacted by phone to ascertain the reasons for non-attendance. After six months, after implementing our new protocol, the rates of non-attendance were rechecked on our system.
Results
The most commonly cited reasons were: Clerical errors or communication failures which mean that patients were unaware of their appointments and represented 38 out of 70 patients (54%). Patients were too busy to attend; 21patients (30%). Other reasons like forgetting their appointment or difficult transportation 16% (11 patients). The non-attendance rates dropped from 16% to 10.5%
Conclusion
implementing new changes like automatic phone call reminder and refer back patients who do not attend twice after discussion with consultant helped us improve our practice.
