News
Automated patient reminders save Sheffield NHS Trust over £100,000
per month
11 February 2010
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has
implemented the Remind+ system from Telephonetics VIP to automatically
remind patients of their appointments.
The Trust provides over one million appointments and operations each
year and had experienced problems with patients that ‘Did Not Attend’
(DNA). DNAs are a serious problem across the NHS, costing an estimated
£600m and increasing waiting times. The average cost of DNA at Sheffield
Teaching Hospitals is £101 per appointment.
The Trust considered Remind+ to be more cost-effective than hosted
reminder solutions. Paul Harriman, Assistant Director, Chief Operating
Officer Directorate at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, commented: “Remind+
addressed our range of requirements to include group and individual
reminders and was more cost-effective as it has lower revenue costs and
is not paid for on a per reminder basis. This was a big advantage with
the volume of reminders we planned.”
Dave Amps, Director of Customer Solutions Architecture at
Telephonetics VIP, explains, “Remind+ uses automated telephone calls in
combination with other media such as SMS and email, to remind the
patient to attend their appointment, just like an ordinary SMS or postal
reminder. However, a critical advantage of Remind+ is the ability to
gather information on the patient’s intention to attend, re-book or
cancel the appointment. This enables the Trust to rebook appointment
times which become available again and consequently helps to reduce
waiting lists while improving DNA rates, as well as using hospital staff
and resources more efficiently.”
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals trialled Remind+ with 12 departments
before a full implementation. The reduced DNA rate generated by the
trial equated to a projected £460,000 annual saving for the trial
departments.
Since the rollout, Remind+ is being used by 60 departments to contact
over 3000 patients each day. During a single six-week campaign, the
Trust used Remind+ to call 48,000 patients. 1,561 patients responded
that they would not attend, allowing 1,561 appointment slots to be
available for reallocation to other patients and saving over £157,000,
or over £100,000 per month. This demonstrates that Remind+ is effective
in reducing waitinglists as well as DNAs.
After five weeks of using Remind+, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals had
identified such significant savings that they could see that the
solution had already paid for itself.
Paul Harriman says “This fantastic return on investment is
underscored by the fact that the Trust owns the solution and we can go
on to deploy as many reminder campaigns as we wish without further
costs. Presently, we are working towards a 30% DNA reduction, which
should save the Trust £1 million per year.”
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