Nonattendance rates of scheduled outpatient appointments in a university general hospital

Diego Hernan Giunta and Marina Alonso Serena

International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 2019, vol. 34, issue 4, 1377-1385

Abstract: Objective We aimed to estimate nonattendance to scheduled medical ambulatory appointments rates globally and by subgroups. Design and participants We designed a retrospective cohort of all adult outpatients over 18 years old who requested at least one scheduled ambulatory medical appointment from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016. Setting Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires is a university general hospital in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It includes an integrated health care network that is formed by two high complexity hospitals and 22 primary care centers. Results The age median was 60.4 years, and 31.33% of the appointments were scheduled by men; 2 526 549 appointments fulfilled selection criteria, belonging to 348 420 patients. The global nonattendance rate was 27.84% (95% CI, 27.79‐27.9). The nonattendance rate to general practitioner appointments was 25.53% (95% CI, 25.42‐25.63); to clinical specialties, 27.78% (95% CI, 27.68‐27.87); and to surgical specialties, 29.31% (95% CI, 29.23‐29.4). Conclusions Because of the consistent variability of nonattendance in different settings, it is strongly recommended that local estimates are used in the design of effective interventions to improve adherence with outpatient healthcare scheduled appointments.

Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.2797

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ijhplm:v:34:y:2019:i:4:p:1377-1385

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0749-6753

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Health Planning and Management is currently edited by Calum Paton

More articles in International Journal of Health Planning and Management from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().