Following up outpatients by telephone: pilot study

BMJ 1998;316:1647-1650 ( 30 May )

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Following up outpatients by telephone: pilot study

Badal Pal, consultant rheumatologist.

South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust, Withington Hospital, Manchester M20 2LR

bpal@fs1.with.man.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The potential of the telephone in routine medical care has not been widely explored. ¹ ² On a detailed questionnaire onfollow up by telephone that canvassed the views of 275 outpatients,160 (80%) stated they would be willing to accept this.³ Weevaluated the role and value of follow up by telephone in thecontinuing care of rheumatology outpatients.

	Patients, methods, and results

Subjects were selected during routine follow up at the rheumatology outpatient clinic. All patients were given a verbal anda written explanation of the aims of the service. An initial detailedclinical assessment and investigations were undertaken to determinepatients' suitability for follow up by telephone. Those consideredunsuitable because of clinical circumstances, age, cognitive orhearing impairment, or language problems were excluded. Approvalfor the study was granted by the hospital management.

All but three of the 173 suitable subjects agreed to follow up by telephone at their next review. During the first year . . . [Full text of this article]

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