Reducing medical oncology infusion no-show rate by improving patient and intra-clinic communication.

Abstract

47 Background: Parkland Health and Hospital System (PHHS) is the safety-net health system for Dallas County. In a resource-limited health care system, no-shows create waste and delay care. We sought to decrease the no-show rate (NSR) for patients scheduled for infusions, transfusions, and injections in the PHHS medical oncology infusion center by 33% in a 4-month period. Methods: A multidisciplinary team reviewed the NSR from January 2020 to May 2020. The reasons for missed appointments were investigated via chart review to better develop an intervention for meaningful change. A telephone follow-up protocol by the infusion nurses with standardized documentation and communication with the clinic and scheduling teams (intra-clinic communication) was implemented for each missed infusion appointment starting in February 2020. Results: The infusion center had a 16.4% NSR in January 2020. Of the 306 missed appointments, there was no documented reason for 44% (159). 19% (70) were related to change in plan-of-care; 19% (67) were in patients who had been admitted. Patient-related issues (transportation, illness, work/family obligations, etc.) were 13% of no-shows. Only 40 (11%) of the no-shows had a follow-up call. After implementation of follow-up telephone calls, the NSR was 11.2% by May 2020, a 32% decrease. 57.8% (204/1822) of patients who no-showed received a follow-up call to document reason for the missed appointment. Conclusions: We decreased the NSR in the PHHS medical oncology infusion center by 32% over a 4-month period, nearly reaching our goal, by implementing standardized post-no-show follow-up calls. Through our process, we discovered that communication, with the patient and intra-clinic, accounted for the most missed appointments rather than patient-related or other factors. Perhaps confounding our results were changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, including mandatory telephone screening of patients prior to infusion appointments. Next steps include integrating pre-appointment calls into the workflow, standardizing change-in-plan communication, and cost analysis of interventions in our resource-limited setting.