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Factors associated with non-attendance at a hand surgery appointment

  • Published:
HAND

Abstract

Background

Patients who miss scheduled appointments without notifying office staff––“no-shows”––disrupt practice workflow and decrease access for others, resulting in misuse of resources and lost revenue. The primary purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with no-shows in a hospital-based outpatient hand office. Secondarily, we studied factors associated with cancelations.

Methods

Of the 14,793 new adult patient appointments to our outpatient hand surgery office scheduled between January 2011 and December 2013, 880 (5.9 %) were no-shows and 2715 (18 %) were cancelations. Data on patient demographics and timing of the visit were collected to construct a multinomial logistic regression model of determinants of appointment no-shows and cancelations.

Results

Factors independently associated with no-shows included younger age, Hispanic or black race, unmarried status (single or divorced), appointment on a Monday or Tuesday, and residence near the office. Factors associated with cancelations were female sex, unmarried status (widowed or divorced), winter season, and appointment on a weekday other than Friday.

Conclusions

Non-attendees are more likely to be younger, unmarried, non-white, to have their appointments at the start of the week, and to live near the office. Knowledge of these factors might prove useful for implementation of tailored quality improvement initiatives to reduce non-attendance and maximize productivity in the hand surgery office setting.

Type of study/level of evidence: Prognostic IV.

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Conflict of Interest

Mariano Menendez declares that he has no conflict of interest.

David Ring declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.

Statement of Informed Consent

This study was a retrospective database analysis, and no individual informed consent was required.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Orthopaedic Hand and Upper Extremity Service, Yawkey Center, Suite 2100, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Mariano E. Menendez & David Ring

Authors
  1. Mariano E. Menendez
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  2. David Ring
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Ring.

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Menendez, M.E., Ring, D. Factors associated with non-attendance at a hand surgery appointment. HAND 10, 221–226 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11552-014-9685-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11552-014-9685-z

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