Reminder Calls Research Articles

The effect of reminder calls in reducing non-attendance rates at care of the elderly clinics

BACKGROUNDDNA (“did not attend”) at outpatient clinics is an important problem costing the NHS an estimated £266 million annually. The national DNA rate for 1996–1997 for all clinics was 12%....

Erratum: Testing Reminder and Motivational Telephone Calls to Increase Screening Mammography: a Randomized Study

Erratum: Testing Reminder and Motivational Telephone Calls to Increase Screening Mammography: a Randomized Study

Erratum: Testing Reminder and Motivational Telephone Calls to Increase Screening Mammography: a Randomized Study

Erratum: Testing Reminder and Motivational Telephone Calls to Increase Screening Mammography: a Randomized Study

Towards Fluency-structured Dialogues with Natural Speech Input

This paper presents the results of a study into how structured dialogue techniques in IVR systems can be extended to allow more natural speech interaction with the caller. A spoken language system was produced which allows callers to set reminder calls or bar outgoing or incoming telephone calls. In spite of the limits of speech recognition performance, the resulting system had a highly natural speech interface which allowed the caller to optionally offer one or more pieces of information at a time.

Use of Automated Reminders for Tuberculin Skin Test Return

This study assessed the impact of automated telephone reminders on tuberculin skin test returns. A total of 701 English-speaking and Spanish-speaking patients of a public health immunization program were randomly assigned to an intervention or a control group. Those in the intervention group received an automated telephone reminder to return for the reading of their skin test. Automated telephone reminders significantly reduced return failures 53% (from 14% to 7%) when the scheduled interval between test administration and reading was three days, but had no impact for a two-day interval. Effectiveness of reminders did not differ significantly by patient age, gender, or language (English versus Spanish). Results suggest the value of automated reminder calls for intra-appointment intervals as short as three days.

Compliance-enhancing counseling strategies for cholesterol management

Nutrition plays a major role in the prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD).I Several of the National Health Objectives for the year 2000 emphasize the importance of nutrition intervention in reducing coronary heart disease risks.2 Epidemiologic evidence from various studies identified elevated serum cholesterol as a coronary heart disease risk factor.38 The preferred initial treatment for lowering serum cholesterol is dietary treatment.9.10 Primary care providers have a role in nutrition counseling for elevated serum cholesterol because of the recommended treatment guidelines 10 and their frequent contact with patients. ll However, physicians report barriers to nutrition counseling such as lack of time, 12 staff, payment or insurance coverage; 13.14 lack of skills to give practical advice; and lack of confidence in their ability to help change patients' dietary behavior. 15-17 The adult treatment guidelines released by the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) recommend that dietitians counsel individuals having difficulty adhering to therapeutic diets. lo As nutrition counselors, dietitians should use the best available strategies to promote patient compliance to the prescribed diet since dietary changes are effective in preventing CHD only if they are adopted over the long term. 18 This article reports on the extent to which counseling practices of dietitians coincide with state-of-the-art recommendations for enhancing dietary compliance for the treatment of adults with high blood cholesterol. Nutrition counseling is a personalized, systematic process that includes assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. 19 Experts in counseling advise counselors to use compliance-enhancing strategies, such as goal setting, contingency contracting with goals and a time frame set by both parties, reminder calls, follow-up visits, self-monitoring,

Counting On Blood Donors: Increasing the Impact of Reminder Calls

Two experiments were conducted to see if blood drive attendance could be increased by altering the content of reminder calls. In Experiment 1 college students received either a standard reminder (the place, time, and necessity of eating beforehand) or a commitment‐enhancing reminder in which they agreed to be “counted on”. Those in the latter condition were significantly more likely (p <.007) to attend a blood drive. Experiment 2 demonstrated that an alternate wording for the commitment‐enhancing message was possible; that a verbal response was necessary to ensure the commitment; and that a message enhancing altruism was not as effective. The studies suggest that asking for an additional commitment during a reminder call can appreciably increase blood drive participation rates.

Lowering Appointment Failures in a Neighborhood Health Center

Failure to keep appointments constitutes a barrier to the delivery of continuous care in many comprehensive health care facilities. At a neighborhood health center in Pittsburgh, Pa., 336 appointments were studied to determine whether reminder letters or reminder calls could improve compliance with appointments scheduled more than three weeks in advance. The failure rate in the control group was 38 per cent compared with 10 per cent for the letter reminder group and 9 per cent for the telephone reminder group. The differences in kept, cancelled, and failed rates between letter and telephone groups were not statistically significant (p greater than .05). The kept rate increased with patient's age in all three groups. Complicance was not affected by sex of the patient, length of time that appointment was scheduled in advance, or day of the week. Compliance was greatest among appointments scheduled for chronic illness follow-up and physical examinations, and least among appointments scheduled for "screening."