The impact of SMS appointment reminders on no-show out patients

Abstract

Nonattendance, which occurs when patients fail to attend their healthcare appointments due to issues such as forgetfulness or lack of transportation. These issues create various problems in healthcare, including wasting resources and increasing the length of the patient waiting list. The SMS reminder strategy may help patients overcome the issues that cause nonattendance as patients receive reminder messages before their appointment dates. Through this service, healthcare providers are able to maintain their resources and manage the patient waiting list effectively. This study aimed to investigate whether SMS reminder services reduced the patient nonattendance rate at the King Abdulaziz Hospital’s out-patient clinics. This quasiexperimental study’s (pre-post) data collection period was February-December 2013 to February-December 2014. The SPSS program was used to conduct descriptive data analysis. The statistical results were significant. In conclusion, SMS reminder systems decrease the nonattendance rate.