Health P.E.I. looks for ways to reduce missed appointments

Tons of of Islanders are lacking their diagnostic imaging appointments.

There have been about 200 missed appointments every month over the previous couple of months — double the quantity that have been missed in February and early March of 2020, based on Well being P.E.I.

Gailyne MacPherson, the director of diagnostic imaging for Well being P.E.I., says the province has been sending textual content or cellphone reminders for ultrasounds, MRIs and mammograms by an app known as Skip the Ready Room.

“We’re believing that it’s getting higher and I believe simply as individuals get used to it. Like, hair appointments are finished by textual content reminder, you realize, esthetician appointments are finished that approach. A lot of persons are utilizing that, because it turns into the mainstream we anticipate the response can be higher.”

Most frequent no-shows

Normal X-ray, ultrasound and mammograms are essentially the most regularly missed appointments.

Why are sufferers lacking their appointments? MacPherson stated Well being P.E.I. has some theories: some individuals could also be afraid to come back to a hospital for testing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. A way of urgency might not all the time be there for mammograms, she stated, if sufferers usually are not experiencing signs. 

“We discovered that 25 per cent of the no exhibits in ultrasound have been follow-up breast ultrasound,” MacPherson stated.

“We all know that now that is current data that has come to mild. And so we will have to take a look at, are these first observe up, second observe ups, subsequent observe ups? We do not we do not have all of the element on that knowledge but.”

Well being P.E.I. is asking anybody who cannot make their appointment to reschedule so it may be given to another person.