Bulk SMS: A Healthy Advantage In The Medical Industry

The most common and costly problem medical providers face daily is missed appointments. When patients fail to keep up with their appointments, it causes disruption in patient care; waiting times are longer, reduced appointment availability for other patients, employees’ schedules must be changed etc.

The main cause for ‘no shows’ is forgetfulness. A study was done in Malaysia looking specifically into SMS reminders on whether it would be effective in reducing non-attendance in patients as when compared to telephone reminders. The results showed that both telephone calls and SMS reminders significantly improved appointment attendance rates, but SMS reminders were more cost effective. Telephone call reminders were deemed more costly and time consuming because repeated calls were needed to contact some patients.

An automated SMS reminder system will be the perfect solution for healthcare industries. Not only will it help reduce patient no-shows by 11%, it can also help cut down on admin costs and allow medical staffs to focus their attention to more important work.

There are also other benefits of using SMS in the medical industry:

1. Health Campaigns/ Events

Promoting health campaigns or events with SMS attached with offers such as free medical check-ups and screenings acts as a motivator for people to attend.

2. Prescription Pick-ups and Exercise reminders

By sending out text messages to remind patients to collect their prescriptions, not only does it save cost by decreasing the number of uncollected prescriptions, it also helps in reducing the amount of time a patient may go without their medications.

Interestingly, sending exercise reminders has been shown to be successful in promoting physical activities and/or exercise in both young and older adults. They described that when recipients received the text message, it reminded and encouraged them to continue to exercise.

3. Patient Satisfaction Surveys

Gather feedback from patients by sending them a SMS with a text link to survey forms. Or a 2-way SMS can be used to collect straightforward information from patients. No matter which method, patients are more willing to complete they survey when they are in the comfort of their own home and if the feedback is collected anonymously.

If you are in the medical industry and there isn’t a SMS service in place, contact us right now. You can make the difference.