The effect of reducing the interval between a patient's call for an appointment and the appointment itself was examined. Patients calling in to a Family Planning unit of a public health department were assigned appointments within one week of their call or to an appointment three weeks from the call date. Data on patient "shows" and "no-shows" were recorded weekly for six weeks. Show rates across all six weeks for those in the one-week appointment group were significantly higher than those from the three-week group. Reducing the interval between the call and the appointment resulted in an average show rate of 75% for the one-week group compared with 57% for the group with a three-week call-appointment interval. / In Experiment II patients were randomly assigned to appointment dates either the next operating clinic day (next-day group) or two-weeks from the call date (two-week group). Patients refusing the appointment first offered were assigned to the rejected-appointments group. Show rates for those in the next-day group were significantly better than show-rates for patients in the two-week group. Mean show rates across all 8 weeks for the next-day, two-week and rejected-appointments group were 72%, 52% and 54% respectively. Measures of clinic productivity and time spent with clients were compared to pre-intervention data. A measure of consumer satisfaction was also used. Differences between the next-day and one-week group and between the two-week and three-week groups were not significant. Implications for appointment scheduling were discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-07, Section: B, page: 2313. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74895 |
| Contributors | BAUMAN, JOANNE BENJAMIN., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 72 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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