The social campaign #ODWOLUJE #NIEBLOKUJE, which draws attention to patients' failure to cancel medical appointments, was launched on 27 October. The campaign was launched with a debate attended by healthcare representatives - from both the private and public sectors. Participants in the discussion looked at the problematic nature of the phenomenon, its causes, consequences, as well as solutions that could reduce the scale of the no-show in healthcare. What conclusions did they reach?
#ODWOLUJE #NIEBLOKUJE is an educational campaign launched by CMP Medical Centre to raise patient awareness of the huge importance of cancelling appointments early. Cancelling a medical consultation in advance gives you a resource to use for another person who may be in great need. A responsible approach to making appointments allows for the implementation of zero waste in medicine - so that other people do not miss out on opportunities for medical help, professionals can use their full potential and time, and the health system suffers less waste.
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Substantive expert discussion
How to achieve this was discussed on 27 October by participants in a debate inaugurating the launch of the campaign. Participants in the discussion included Paweł Walicki - President of CMP Medical Centre, Artur Białkowski - Managing Director of Medicover Business Services, Michał Dubno - Director of NPS and Accessibility Management, Piotr Gołaszewski - Director of Branch Management, Spokesperson of Mazowieckie Bródnowski Hospital, Antonina Doroszewska - Head of Medical Communication Studies at the Medical University of Warsaw, and Iwona Kania - Patient Service Expert, Spokesperson of the Central MSWiA Hospital in Warsaw. Here are the main themes and conclusions of the debate.
- The scale of the problem of missed appointments is gigantic! In the facilities involved in the 10 partners' campaign alone, almost 570,000 patients have failed to attend since the beginning of 2022. It is worth noting that there are more than 26 thousand healthcare entities registered in Poland! The data presented here refer only to those who did not inform about their absence, but the system also struggles with patients who, although they resign from consultations, do it at the last moment (e.g. an hour before the appointment), so no one else can use the released
- The reasons for not cancelling appointments range from emergencies, signing up for back-ups, booking consultations in several places, fear of being examined, to forgetting an appointment. There is also a problem for patients who use the healthcare system but do not feel that they are part of it - they do not feel that they should inform the facilities when they cancel an appointment. There is a lack of social responsibility for the health of others and an awareness that this translates into the availability of specialists.
- Patients' low awareness of appointment cancellation and their failure to realise the scale of the problem is leading to a worsening of the problem. According to a survey of CMP Medical Centre patients, almost 50% respondents believed that 10,000 appointments are not cancelled annually nationwide, with the latest figures from the National Health Service putting the figure at 17 million.
- Various solutions are used by healthcare providers to remind people of their appointments and to give them the opportunity to cancel them. These include information via text messages, telephone contact, apps or portals. Unfortunately - despite the wide range - patients do not always respond to messages. Younger people, those with lower education or economic status and so-called 'repeat offenders', i.e. patients who repeatedly fail to attend appointments, are more likely to do so. Healthcare providers are upgrading registration and cancellation systems, but not everyone knows how to use them. As part of the campaign, the partners will develop a good practice charter with suggestions for ways to make the cancellation process easier and more efficient, tailored to different needs.
- The key to reducing missed appointments is to educate patients, not to sanction them. Although private providers can charge fines to those who fail to attend, this is very rarely used Penalisation by public providers would instead be a violation of patients' rights - the only option is to move them to the end of the queue. Both healthcare sectors agree that it is patient awareness raising and patient education that can give better results than the introduction of a penalty system.
- Patient education should be carried out as early as the visit that precedes the next one. Both doctors and those responsible for registration should provide information on how to prepare for an examination or consultation and how to cancel it if we are unable to attend. An interesting solution is that some health care providers already contact people who have missed appointments to remind them of their duty and responsibility for the health of others.
- Missed appointments generate huge losses on many levels. On the one hand, they relate to financial issues - costs do not disappear with a missed consultation. Larger financial liabilities are associated with outpatient healthcare, where we are dealing with more complex services, while the system is more likely to encounter missed appointments in Primary Health Care (PHC).
- The phenomenon of non-cancellation of appointments lengthens the queues to specialists, who waste their time and knowledge. As a result, there are situations in which patients turn up for consultations without up-to-date tests, having been referred even several months earlier. These types of appointments also reduce the availability of healthcare, because the treatment really starts from the beginning. Given that there are 2.38 doctors per 1 000 people in Poland, every visit is worth its weight in gold.
An ageing population and the health debt caused by the pandemic mean that the demand for medical services will increase. Conscious and responsible cancellation of appointments and respect for the time of specialists is a remarkable saving for the entire health care system, but also a real opportunity to improve the health of Poles. More information on the social campaign #ODWOLUJE #NIEBLOKUJE is available at: www.odwolujenieblokuje.pl
The campaign is organised by the CMP Medical Centre. The Ministry of Health and the National Health Fund have assumed honorary patronage of the campaign. The co-organisers of the project are: Żelazna Medical Centre - St. Sophia Hospital and Clinic, Mazowiecki Bródnowski Hospital, Central Hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Warsaw Children's Hospital, Wolski Hospital, POLMED, Medicover and LUX MED. Social partners included organisations such as the Institute for Patient Rights and Health Education and the We Patients Foundation. The Medical University of Warsaw became the scientific patron, while the Medical Centre of the Medical University of Warsaw and the eHealth Centre became substantive partners. The strategic media patron of the project is the Politykadrowotna.com portal; in terms of media partnerships, the campaign was supported by Nasze Miasto and Wprost.