Text Message Appointment Reminders (TAR)

May 26, 2015 updated by: Sanjay Arora, University of Southern California

A Text-message Appointment Reminder System to Improve Patient Adherence With Outpatient Follow-up Appointments

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.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

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.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

374

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Los Angeles, California, United States, 90033
        • University of Southern California

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

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

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control
Patients randomized to the control arm will not receive text message reminder regarding their upcoming appointment.
Experimental: Text message appointment reminder
Patients randomized to the intervention arm will receive text message appointment reminders including date, time, and location seven, three and one day prior to their scheduled clinic appointments. All appointment reminders will then be delivered automatically.
Other: Text message appointment reminder
Patients randomized to the intervention arm will receive text message appointment reminders including date, time, and location seven, three and one day prior to their scheduled clinic appointments. All appointment reminders will then be delivered automatically.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Adherence with scheduled appointments within 30 days post-enrollment
Time Frame: 30 days
30 days

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Adherence with scheduled appointments within 6 months post-enrollment
Time Frame: 6 months
6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Southern California

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Sanjay Arora, MD, University of Southern California
  • Principal Investigator: Michael Menchine, MD, MPH, University of California

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

July 1, 2012

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 28, 2012

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 29, 2012

First Posted (Estimate)

August 30, 2012

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

May 27, 2015

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 26, 2015

Last Verified

May 1, 2015

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • HS-12-00239

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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