HBCIS Enhancement - SMS

Aim

To improve Outpatient clinic utilisation, through reducing the number of FTA’s.

Benefits

• Cost benefits of SMS were achieved through increasing the utilisation of outpatient resources, including medical and nursing staff time, clinic overheads and costs and reduced administration time reminding patients of appointments and rebooking patient appointments.
• The system was designed to be responsive to business requirements with the ability for users to set a number of parameters. These include the time messages are sent, the days on which a message is sent and the number of messages sent. The system also allows for a minimum age to be set as well as sites being able to use their own message content (in line with Queensland Health policy). Departments can also choose from three types of messages; reminder, alteration or cancellation.

Background

In conjunction with the HBCIS Application Support team from Health Services Information Agency (HSIA) and external messaging company, Message Media, and the Healthcare Improvement Unit developed an enhancement which allows SMS to be sent from the HBCIS Appointment Scheduling and Elective Admissions Management modules. This enhancement operates through an automated process whereby SMS are sent from Queensland Health through a Secure Transfer Service to Message Media, who then deliver the messages to the nominated patients.

Evaluation and results

At the completion of the HBCIS SMS configuration for facilities across the state, the Department will undertake an evaluation of the service improvements achieved by introducing the SMS functionality

Lessons learnt

Culture change takes time.