Blog Recalls: The Powerful Tool for Continuous Care
“Drugs don’t work in patients who don’t take them.”
— Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop
Do you want to improve patient outcomes, but find it a challenge when they don’t follow their care plan? Once outside your clinic’s doors, patients can forget about their follow-up appointments and medicine refills. It’s easy for patients to fall through the cracks, especially when they lead busy lives. Thankfully, healthcare providers can use recalls as an effective engagement tool to improve patient outcomes.
What are recalls?
Recalls are reminder messages to make an appointment that’s emailed or texted to patients who are due for a visit or medicine refill. When a recall message is tailored to suit a patient’s needs, it makes them feel especially cared for, even when they aren’t physically at your clinic.
How to Make Average Recalls Great Again
The average recall is merely a reminder message; the patient is forced to take multiple steps to book their next appointment. A great recall message not only reminds the patient of their follow-up or refill, but also lets them book their next visit with minimum effort.
| Average Recall Message | Great Recall Message |
|---|---|
E.g. “Dear John Doe, Pls remember to schedule your next appt before 2 Nov 2020. Thank you, EndocrineCare Clinic” |
E.g. “Dear John Doe, Your last dosage of metformin will be complete on 2 Nov 2020. Pls book your next endocrine appt for a check-up & refill before 2 Nov 2020 at https://pla.sg/s/UyL7u. Thank you, EndocrineCare Clinic” |
How effective are recalls?
Multiple studies conclude recall effectiveness across different patient types in both appointment and medication adherence (Schwebel et al., 2018).
Chronic disease patients, for example, may find it hard to stay committed to long-term care plans. In this instance, SMS reminders nearly double the odds of medication adherence (Thakkar et al., 2015). Specifically, a study on type 2 diabetes patients found that SMS recalls improve medical adherence and were well received among patients (Vervloet et al., 2012). Similarly, recalls help coronary heart disease patients commit significantly better to their care regimes (Zhao et al., 2019). Even in preventive care, text recalls improve the uptake of pediatric and adolescent immunisations in urban populations (Stockwell et al., 2012).
Recalls can support continuous care among patients. Unlike manual recalls that are tedious for staff to implement, automated recalls let healthcare teams efficiently manage continued care like clockwork.
Common use cases for recalls
Automated recalls save staff time and effort. The Allied Physicians Group, comprising over 150 physicians across 35 locations in New York, shared that using automated text and email recalls led to a US$5.2 million return on investment in recall visits. Staff also wasted less time on phone calls to patients.
Recall is “one of the most important systems that you can organise in your practice,” advise Denise Ciardello and Janice Janssen, co-founders of practice management consulting firm Global Team Solutions. The key to successful continuous care is to make recall scheduling a routine task for clinics, similar to making payments or a deposit. The majority of treatments are scheduled following a recall appointment, say Ciardello and Janssen. So it’s crucial for clinics to establish a reliable recall system that’s automated and easy to use for your team. Automation lays a solid foundation for ensuring clinics manage recalls regularly.
Automate recalls
In Plato, clinics can schedule automated dispensing-based and patient-based recalls. Dispensing-based recalls let you configure a recall schedule for any line item within your clinic’s inventory list. Three common use cases for dispensing-based recalls include:
- Preventive care—Doctors use recalls to remind patients about their follow-up consult following a surgery or for routine check-ups.
- Medical adherence—Patients with multiple prescriptions may find it hard to manually keep track of refills. Recalls minimise the odds of your patient missing their prescription refill.
- Procedures—Reminders for follow-up procedures help patients stay committed to full treatment plans. For instance, reminding a root canal patient to schedule their crown fitting post-surgery.
Start using recalls today
Plato simplifies continuous care for healthcare providers and their patients with automated recalls. Practitioners can provide the best care possible when everything they need is on one platform: Plato.
References
December 2, 2020