Reduce DNAs with PKB 

Owned by Hannah Johnson-Keck
Last updated: Sept 05, 2024
5 min read

PKB can help reduce DNA (Did not attend) by enhancing patient communication, empowering patients with easy access to their healthcare information, and providing actionable insights to healthcare providers. This leads to improved patient experience, optimised clinic operations, and significant organisational cost savings.

Why

Organisations struggle to communicate current appointment information with patients in a timely and reliable manner, leading to patients being unaware of their upcoming appointments and consequently missing them.

NHS England’s analysis of missed appointments shows the two most common reasons are forgetting about the appointment and being unaware of the appointment. Other reasons are:

 

  • Patient didn't receive the appointment before the appointment date 

  • Patient no longer needed the appointment 

  • Patient unable to attend, has difficulties cancelling or rearranging their appointment. 

  • Difficulty taking time off work (mainly when face-to-face appointments are offered as the only option).

What

PKB offers appointment management, integration of appointments and appointment letters and soon, the upcoming feature SMS appointment reminders. PKB appointment management options give patients more control over booking and cancelling appointments. 

Organisations can offer remote consultations through PKB messaging and questionnaire functionalities and send patients appointments and appointment letters to the PKB record, accessed through PKB or the NHS app. 

How 

Creating a PKB record for every patient, sending all appointments and letters to patients, increasing registration tactics to empower patients and reduce DNAs. Sending DNA data to PKB for a local benefits dashboard. Setting up an appointment management process with PKB secure patient-initiated messaging and SMS reminders will successfully reduce DNAs and booking costs. 

 

Appointments 

PKB displays the patient's appointment information immediately and updates it as soon as any changes are made. The display is clear and shows the latest time, date, and location, keeping outdated information hidden.

Letters & Documents

PKB sends appointment letters with important information. Over 50% of patients read the letters within 2 hours, and 83% within two days. If a letter isn't read within a day, PKB sends a reminder.

Appointment management 

PKB's appointment management functionality streamlines appointment changes, reducing unplanned phone calls and allowing administrative processes to be streamlined through messaging. If a patient needs to rearrange or cancel an appointment, they can easily do so through their PKB record. More information can be found here.

 

SMS reminders 

Using SMS to remind patients to complete a pre-appointment questionnaire or to remind them of upcoming appointments allows organisations to reach the majority of their patients, as they usually have mobile phone numbers for about 90% of all patients.

Carer

Caregivers can access a patient's PKB record and will be notified of new appointments or letters. They can assist with rescheduling, reminding, and attending appointments, making the process easier for everyone.

Benefits of reducing DNAs 

Reducing DNAs offers a range of benefits for both organisations and patients. Below is a summary of these benefits.

  • Enhanced patient experience: Timely care improves satisfaction and outcomes.

  • Increased capacity: Fewer DNAs mean more patients seen, and shorter wait lists.

  • Improve administrative processes: Better communication reduces workload and missed appointments. Sending reminders or allowing easier rescheduling

  • Personalised care: Fewer DNAs mean that care can be more tailored to individual patient needs.

  • Patient Empowerment: Patients are empowered to take charge of their health when they engage more consistently with their care plans.

  • Efficient clinics: Predict attendance, and prevent overruns.

  • Avoid unnecessary follow-ups: understanding when patients no longer need an appointment, organisation can reduce unnecessary follow-ups, saving time and resources.

  • Cost savings: Each DNA costs the NHS £120. A reduction in DNAs translates into substantial financial savings. 

Example impact

A 35% reduction across nearly 10 million appointments over 18 months has resulted in cost savings and increased efficiency, (based on 18 months data from almost 10 million appointments across 15 providers), highlights including:

  • East Cheshire NHS Trust: Achieved a 48.14% reduction in DNAs.

  • University Hospitals of North Midlands: Recorded a 39.47% reduction in DNAs.

  • Mid-Cheshire Hospitals: Saw a 39.41% reduction in DNAs.

Appointment management in PKB workflow 

The data

Patients who did not register for PKB DNA 6.55% of their appointments, while those who did register DNA only 4.31% of their appointments. This is the data from nearly 15 million appointments over 18 months across 15 providers who store their appointments data in PKB.

  • DNA (unregistered): total DNAs where patient not registered at time of appointment / total appointments where a patient is not registered at time of appointment

  • DNA (registered): total DNAs where patient is registered at time of appointment / total appointments where a patient is registered at time of appointment

Many show this reduction across the whole Trust and at large scale such as Hull University Teaching Hospital. Across the Trust, HUTHs DNAs are 8.74% for unregistered patients and just 5.61% for registered patients. 

Further information