From Cellular News:
As a result of one of the first population-wide deployments of text messaging services, GP surgeries across Lewisham Primary Care Trust in London, UK have reduced missed appointments by 27% over the last year. The reduction has been attributed to surgeries using iPLATO Patient Care Messaging, a platform for text appointment reminders and other mobile patient services in UK Primary Care.
Neat. Sending a text reminder causes patients to be on time for appointments. That's a big benefit for such a small feature.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
It certainly is. Would it surprise you if I told you that the UK NHS (National Health Service) lost $800m last year through missed appointments?
I guess not, Paul. That's huge.
Its a fantastic idea, and one that we have been using in our own doctors surgery for the past year. We use Txtlocal (http://www.txtlocal.com) – which, unlike the iPlato system is 100% free to setup and use.. we just pay for the text messages at 4p each and rent an inbound mobile number for £35 per month.
Each day we export an excel spreadsheet from our appointments system and import it into Txtlocal, merging in patient names, appointment times and doctor details. All very very simple.
The system has reduced our missed appointments by 40% in the last year and I can't understand why more practices don't use a similar system.
Great idea, thanks very much, we will suggest this add-on to all our client's Asterisk PBX's where appropriate, they will love it.
Cheers.
SMS sending service really offers a lot of benefits. Imagine the 27% reduction in missed appointments? That’s a lot!