Clinical trial NCT01676337: Text Message Appointment Reminders
Official title: A Text-message Appointment Reminder System to Improve Patient Adherence With Outpatient Follow-up Appointments
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Text Messages
Emergencies
Keywords: Text messaging
Clinic appointment attendance
Emergency department
Primary care
Lead sponsor: University of Southern California
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2012-08-30
Enrollment: 374
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: This project proposes administer and evaluate via a randomized controlled trail a text message-based appointment reminder system to promote attendance at clinic appointments after ED discharge.

Detailed description: Failure to attend scheduled clinic appointments causes inefficiency within the healthcare system, and frequently results in ED visits for non-emergent conditions such as medication refills, ambulatory care sensitive conditions which are potentially preventable with appropriate outpatient management (e.g. foot infections). Many patients seen in the ED report they were unaware of past or future outpatient appointments for which they had been scheduled. These patients are clearly in need of primary care, yet fail to attend 30% of all scheduled outpatient appointments. Patients most often report that they failed to attend scheduled appointments as a result of forgetfulness or confusion regarding dates, times, or locations. National data confirmed by our previous work in the LAC+USC ED demonstrates that \> 80% of this population reports using a text-capable mobile device. The investigators believe a system of text message appointment reminders has tremendous potential to facilitate clinic attendance among these patients in desperate need of primary care.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Age \>18
* Able to provide consent and read in English or Spanish
* Have a text message capable mobile phone
* Know how to receive text messages
* Have upcoming scheduled clinic appointments

Exclusion Criteria:

* Unable to provide written informed consent
* Incarcerated
* Critically ill
* Altered Mental Status

Primary outcomes:
measure: Adherence with scheduled appointments within 30 days post-enrollment
timeFrame: 30 days
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Adherence with scheduled appointments within 6 months post-enrollment
timeFrame: 6 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Los Angeles
country: United States
facility: University of Southern California
state: California
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Southern California
name: Sanjay Arora, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of California
name: Michael Menchine, MD, MPH
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Arora S, Burner E, Terp S, Nok Lam C, Nercisian A, Bhatt V, Menchine M. Improving attendance at post-emergency department follow-up via automated text message appointment reminders: a randomized controlled trial. Acad Emerg Med. 2015 Jan;22(1):31-7. doi: 10.1111/acem.12503. Epub 2014 Nov 11.