[Patient compliance in ambulatory medical care]

During February and March 1987, 313 private practitioners and 35 outpatients clinics in the cantons of Vaud et Fribourg participated in the study "Ambulatory medical practice". A representative sample of more than 17,800 records was collected and analysed from the 110,000 weekly consultations. In this paper we discuss the patient flow in ambulatory medical care. Overall, patient flows appear to be influenced more by practitioner and patient characteristics than by contextual factors such as medical density. In private practice the proportion of patients who are appointed and indeed attend the consultation is 50%; in outpatient clinics only 30%. The patient's compliance (probability of keeping an appointment) depends on one hand of the physicians' specialty and, on the other hand, it decreases when the appointment rate increases.