Addenbrooke’s installs SMS patient reminder system

Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, has implemented an SMS reminder system for patient appointments after a series of pilots of different software.

Three solutions were tested in the hospital by staff, and the software chosen by the staff was manufactured by Advanced Messaging. The text-based reminders are currently being sent out to people attending dermatology appointments. Plans are afoot to expand the system across other disciplines in the hospital.

Ade Adigun-Harris, service delivery manager for specialist medicine at Addenbrooke’s said: "We chose a supplier on the basis of cost, ease of operation and wider capability – and Advanced Messaging was best in all three areas."

Michael Fowle, business development director of Advanced Messaging, said that the project had been solidly backed by clinicians at Addenbrooke’s and that each system had been put through its paces before they came to a decision: "They look three criteria and we came top in all three."

Fowle explained that although there was little technical information released so far about Choose and Book, there were plans to eventually link it into the system.

"It will still be the responsibility of the hospital that people turn up," explained Fowle. "Quite frequently a booking is changed or altered in the 10 days before it happens… You have to send out a letter some way in advance."

Fowle said that sending reminders or notifications of appointment changes was quicker and more immediate than writing a letter and then having to follow it up with a telephone call if circumstances change.

Furthermore, there was an economic case for using text messaging instead of letters; individual text messages cost less than second class stamps.

Advanced Messaging already operate a similar text message reminded system for patients at The Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill, which they claim to be the UK’s first installation of a hospital-wide SMS reminder system. According to Advanced Messaging, six more hospitals are expected to go live with the service this summer.

In an unrelated project, Addenbrooke’s won an E-Health Innovation award this year in the category of Best Use of Mobile Technology for a system in which transplant co-ordinatiors carried around Blackberrys linked to a central server with up-to-date information about patients and availability of organs.