Rebecca Todd, e-Health Insider
“EMIS has re-launched its patient information website with a new look and plans for a a series of apps; including one that will let patients book an appointment from their smartphone.
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e-Health Insider Acute
“Conservative MP Richard Bacon has called for a halt to all Cerner Millennium deployments following appointment problems and delays at the latest trusts to go-live with the system – North Bristol and Oxford.
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Guy R et al, Health Services Research. 2011
Background and Objectives
In the last few years there has been a steady uptake of mobile phone short message service (SMS) reminders to increase medical attendance rates. We undertook a review of studies that assessed the effectiveness of SMS reminders at increasing the uptake of appointments in health care settings.
Methods
We reviewed studies which involved a comparison of appointment attendance rates between patients who did and did not receive SMS reminders published prior to June 2010. We used meta-analysis methods to calculate the overall effect on attendance rates, stratified by study design and clinic type.
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Gill Hitchcock, Guardian Professional
“The number of patients failing to turn up for hospital appointments can be reduced by 34% using SMS text message or phone reminders, according to review carried out by telemedicine specialists at the university hospital of North Norway.
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Hasvold PE, Wootton R. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 2011
Patients failing to attend hospital appointments contribute to inefficient use of resources. We conducted a systematic review of studies providing a reminder to patients by phone, short message service (SMS) or automated phone calls. A PubMed search was conducted to identify articles published after 1999, describing studies of non-attendance at hospital appointments. In addition, we searched the references in the included papers. In total, 29 studies were included in the review. Four had two intervention arms which were treated as independent studies, giving a total of 33 estimates. The papers were analysed by two observers independently. A study quality score was developed and used to weight the data. Weighted means of the absolute and the relative changes in non-attendance were calculated. All studies except one reported a benefit from sending reminders to patients prior to their appointment.
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Nina Lakhani, The Independent
“The NHS could save tens of millions of pounds each year by sending text message to patients to remind them of hospital appointments.
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ePractice EU
“The website of the Italian Health Ministry now includes a new section that is dedicated to the theme of eHealth.
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Brian Dolan, mobihealthnews
“According to the FDA’s mobile medical app draft regulatory guidelines, which it made public this morning, there are a handful of different types of health and medical apps that the agency specifically said would not be regulated under the proposed guidelines.
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Fiona Barr, e-Health Insider
“NHS Wales has announced that the first GP practices have gone live with its My Health Online service, which enables patients to book appointments and request repeat prescriptions over the internet.
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El cuaderno de bitácora de Fran Sánchez
“Google ha activado hace poco una nueva funcionalidad de su servicio Google Calendar que bien merece un videotutorial (que ya echaba de menos hacer alguno). Se llama “Espacios para citas” y nos permite definir periodos de tiempo que dispondrán de huecos para citas configurables. Este espacio podrá ser usado por todo aquel con quien compartamos el enlace generado para que pueda asignarse citas por sí mismo.
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Healthcare IT News
“Physicians and patients alike are ready to move registration, prescription renewal, bill pay and other services online, according to a new study from Intuit Health.
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Horvath M et al, J Med Internet Res, 13(2)
BACKGROUND
Internet portal technologies that provide access to portions of electronic health records have the potential to revolutionize patients’ involvement in their care. However, relatively few descriptions of the demographic characteristics of portal enrollees or of the effects of portal technology on quality outcomes exist. This study examined data from patients who attended one of seven Duke Medicine clinics and who were offered the option of enrolling in and using the Duke Medicine HealthView portal (HVP). The HVP allows patients to manage details of their appointment scheduling and provides automated email appointment reminders in addition to the telephone and mail reminders that all patients receive.
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Leong KC et al, Family Practice, 23(6)
BACKGROUND
Non-attendance is common in primary care and previous studies have reported that reminders were useful in reducing broken appointments.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the effectiveness of a text messaging reminder in improving attendance in primary care. DESIGN Multicentre three-arm randomized controlled trial.
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Linda Davidson, e-Health Insider
“US healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente has achieved a 58% adoption rate for its electronic personal health record among eligible members.
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Christina's Considerations
“NCR got its start in banking, but healthcare is benefiting from their success as hospitals respond to the needs of ePatients and empower them to do more for themselves.
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Kari Popov, Mass Device
“First, a true confession: I have two kids … and absolutely no idea when their yearly check-ups are. Originally, they were the same months as their birthdays, January and November. Simple, right? Not so much, since you can’t schedule next year’s appointment at this year’s appointment.
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Northern Doc
“One of the team saw this news item in Pulse magazine this weekend. For reasons best known to the Party it is scrapping its target that 90% of referrals should be made via the hugely expensive and failed Choose and Book (C&B) system.
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CBC News
“Thousands of patients taking advantage of Canada’s first online health records system say it is giving them control over their care, but some experts are warning too much information can cause panic.
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Alisdair Stirling, Pulse
“Exclusive: The Government has quietly dropped its long-standing target of channelling 90% of GP referrals through Choose and Book, Pulse can reveal.
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Gienna Shaw, HealthLeaders Media
“One of the “five pillars” of meaningful use is to engage patients and their families in electronic health data. But engaging patients and families with electronic health data isn’t just about HITECH requirements and stimulus money – - it’s also a way to foster collaborative decision-making between provider and patient, which, in turn, improves the patient experience, leads to better outcomes, and can reduce readmissions.
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