Background: It is essential to consider the evidence of consumer preferences and their specific needs when determining which strategies to use to improve patient attendance at scheduled healthcare appointments.
Objectives: This study aimed to identify key attributes and elicit healthcare consumer preferences for a healthcare appointment reminder system.
Methods: A discrete choice experiment was conducted in a general Australian population sample. The respondents were asked to choose between three options: their preferred reminder (A or B) or a 'neither' option. Attributes were developed through a literature review and an expert panel discussion. Reminder options were defined by four attributes: modality, timing, content and interactivity. Multinomial logit and mixed multinomial logit models were estimated to approximate individual preferences for these attributes. A scenario analysis was performed to estimate the likelihood of choosing different reminder systems.
Results: Respondents (n = 361) indicated a significant preference for an appointment reminder to be delivered via a text message (β = 2.42, p < 0.001) less than 3 days before the appointment (β = 0.99, p < 0.001), with basic details including the appointment cost (β = 0.13, p < 0.10), and where there is the ability to cancel or modify the appointment (β = 1.36, p < 0.001). A scenario analysis showed that the likelihood of choosing an appointment reminder system with these characteristics would be 97%.
Conclusions: Our findings provide evidence on how healthcare consumers trade-off between different characteristics of reminder systems, which may be valuable to inform current or future systems. Future studies may focus on exploring the effectiveness of using patient-preferred reminders alongside other mitigation strategies used by providers.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11343896 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40271-024-00692-9 | DOI Listing |
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!