[The telephone accessibility of the prior appointment program]. / Accesibilidad telefónica del programa de cita previa.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To determine the ease of access by telephone when making medical appointments. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, observational, random sample. SETTING: Primary care, Murcia Region. PATIENTS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Centres with a previous appointments system (n = 25) and a random sample of the 276 practitioners involved (n = 97). We ruled out 4 practitioners for not having a telephone in their outer consulting room. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We made telephone calls until we had obtained appointments with each of the practitioners, across three hour blocks. The result was an average of 2,333 calls/appointment, with a deflection of 2,271. The mode and median were 1, and the range 26. We found differences in the distribution of the calls across the three blocks (p < 0.05). Comparing rural centres with urban, we found a lower average number of calls in the first two blocks (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Telephone accessibility is at an appropriate level, both in rural and urban areas.