Counties Manukau District Health Board SuperClinic
Middlemore Hospital and its outpatient facilities the Manukau & Botany SuperClinics make up one of New Zealand's largest health services.
The outpatient clinic had recognised a real problem with DNAs - "Did Not Attends" - which was effectively wasting big dollars in unused appointments.
They had put in place many successful initiatives to get the rate down, but it had stuck at just under 12% for two years before Dialhog was hired to attack the problem.
The project began small with just the Gout and Rheumatology clinic. Results were immediately favourable so it was quickly expanded to the entire outpatient clinic, which handles 3500 appointments per week.
The key result achieved, with only just over half patient records listing mobile phones, was a reduction of 20% in the number of people who failed to show up for their appointments.
For the Hospital, that was a spectacular Return on Investment of 820% per annum. Part of this was the improvement in clients remembering their appointments, and part of it was in efficiencies at the call centre, where staff had previously had to devote many hours to contacting clients individually by phone.
Patients were also surveyed on their acceptance of text messaging as a way of communication. The response was overwhelmingly favourable, with 99% reporting high satisfaction.
www.cmdhb.org.nz
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