CareMessage Text Usage Increases Appointment Adherence in a Student-Run Free Clinic

Summary

A student-run free clinic replaced manual phone calls with CareMessage's automated text reminders. This change led to a 67.5% reduction in patient no-shows and a significant decrease in staff time spent on reminder calls, improving both clinic efficiency and access to care for uninsured patients.

Key Findings

• Implementing CareMessage reduced the average number of no-shows per clinic by 67.5%, from 0.80 before the intervention to 0.26 after.
• The system dramatically increased clinic efficiency, cutting the number of weekly reminder phone calls made by staff from over 9 to just 3.
• The clinic used CareMessage to send automated appointment reminders two days before a visit, allowing patients to easily confirm or cancel via text.
• By reducing no-shows, the clinic improved patient continuity of care, access to care, and overall clinic efficiency.

Clinical Significance

CareMessage is a highly effective and efficient tool, particularly for resource-limited settings like student-run free clinics. By automating appointment reminders, the platform drastically cuts down on no-shows, which increases patient access and continuity of care. It also frees up valuable volunteer time, allowing staff to focus on more direct patient needs instead of administrative phone calls. This demonstrates a simple, powerful way to improve clinic operations.

CareMessage Product Feature(s)

Appointments

Citation

Chen, E. J., Hoang, P., Garcia, K., Richwagen, N., & Pasarica, M. (2022). CareMessage Text Usage Increases Appointment Adherence in a Student-Run Free Clinic. Journal of Student-Run Clinics, 8(1).