Utilizing the phone appointment for adolescent follow-up

Fifty young women were given 126 telephone appointments as a supplement to follow-up care in a university hospital adolescent clinic. Eighty (64%) calls were placed on the appropriate day, 71 (89%) of which were within 20 minutes of the assigned time. Patients with one or two clinic visits honored 39 of 52 (75%) of their phone appointments, whereas those with 11 or more visits kept only 8 of 17 (47%). Telephone appointments scheduled directly in the clinic were kept on 66 of 98 (67%) occasions as compared to 14 of 28 (50%) for those made over the phone. Sixty-four of 93 (69%) calls were made when the interval from the time the phone appointments were given to date of appointment was 7 days or less, while 16 of 33 (48%) responded when this period was 8 days or longer. The data document the compliance of adolescent girls with telephone appointments and suggest that this technique may be a useful adjunct for monitoring patients requiring close medical follow-up.