Advanced access scheduling for primary care
Citation: Rose KD, Ross JS, Horwitz LI. Advanced access scheduling outcomes: a systematic review. Archives of Internal Medicine 2011 Jul 11;171(13):1150-9.
What is this? The COVID-19 pandemic is placing a strain on healthcare services. Existing research on ways to manage services, such as advanced access scheduling for primary care, may provide useful information for policy makers.
In this systematic review the authors searched for information on patient, physician, and practice outcomes resulting from the implementation of advanced access scheduling in primary care. They restricted their searches to articles published in English and did the search in August 2010. They identified 28 articles describing 24 studies, all of which were from the UK or the USA.
What was found: Strategies to allow advanced access to primary care improved wait times and reduced non-attendance rates.
The effects on patient satisfaction of strategies to allow advanced access to primary care were variable.
The effects on clinical outcomes and loss to follow-up of strategies to allow advanced access to primary care are uncertain.