TY  - JOUR
AU  - North, Frederick
AU  - Nelson, Elissa M
AU  - Majerus, Rebecca J
AU  - Buss, Rebecca J
AU  - Thompson, Matthew C
AU  - Crum, Brian A
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/3/18
TI  - Impact of Web-Based Self-Scheduling on Finalization of Well-Child Appointments in a Primary Care Setting: Retrospective Comparison Study
JO  - JMIR Med Inform
SP  - e23450
VL  - 9
IS  - 3
KW  - electronic health record
KW  - schedules
KW  - patient appointment
KW  - preventive health service
KW  - office visit
KW  - outpatient care
KW  - software tool
KW  - computer software application
KW  - mobile applications
KW  - child health
KW  - pediatric
KW  - preventive care
KW  - self
AB  - Background: Web-booking of flights, hotels, and sports events has become commonplace in the travel and entertainment industry, but self-scheduling of health care appointments on the web is not yet widely used. An electronic health record that integrates appointment scheduling and patient web-based access to medical records creates an opportunity for patient self-scheduling. The Mayo Clinic developed and implemented a feature in its Patient Online Services (POS) web and mobile platform that allows software-managed self-scheduling of well-child visits. Objective: This study aims to examine the use of a new self-scheduling appointment feature within POS in both web and mobile formats and determine the use characteristics, outcomes, and efficiency of self-scheduling compared with staff scheduling. Methods: Within a primary care setting, we collected 13 months of all appointment activity for the well-child visit for children aged 2-12 years. As these specific appointment types are for minors, self-scheduling is performed by parents or other proxies. We compared the appointment actions of scheduling and cancelling for both self-scheduled and staff-scheduled appointments. The frequency in which patients were using self-scheduling outside of normal business hours was quantified, and we compared no-show outcomes of finalized appointments. Results: Of the 1099 patients who performed any self-scheduling actions, 73.1% (803/1099) exclusively used self-scheduling and self-cancelling software. For those with access to self-scheduling (patients registered with the Mayo Clinic POS), 4.92% (1201/24,417) of all well-child appointment-scheduling actions were self-scheduled. Staff scheduling required more than a single appointment step (eg, schedule, cancel, reschedule) in 28.32% (3729/13,168) compared with only 6.93% (53/765) of self-scheduled appointments (P<.001). Self-scheduling appointment actions took place outside of regular business hours 29.5% (354/1201) of the time. No-shows accounted for 3.07% (28/912) of the self-scheduled finalized appointments compared with 4.12% (693/16,828) of staff-scheduled appointments, which is a nonsignificant difference (P=.12). Staff-scheduled finalized appointments (that allowed for scheduling appointments for more than 12 weeks in the future) revealed a potential demand of 11.15% (1876/16,828) for appointments with longer lead times. Conclusions: Self-scheduling can generate a significant number of finalized appointments, decreasing the need for staff scheduler time. We found that 29.5% (354/1201) of the self-scheduling activity took place outside of the usual staff scheduler hours, adding convenience value to the scheduling process. For exclusive self-schedulers, 93.1% (712/765) finalized the appointment in a single step. The no-show rates were not adversely affected by the self-scheduling. 
SN  - 2291-9694
UR  - https://medinform.jmir.org/2021/3/e23450
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/23450
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33734095
DO  - 10.2196/23450
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/23450
ER  -