Date of Award

Summer 5-25-2025

Document Type

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Manuscript

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Department

Nursing

First Advisor

Katie Lais, DNP

Abstract

Abstract

We are in the digital age in all avenues of life, especially healthcare. The standard of care is no longer just a paper reminder card and a call from the office to confirm the patient is going to make it in the week of their appointment. Cards get lost and more people are screening their phones due to a rise in robocalls and scams, which is leading to more people corresponding via text. This is why text-based reminders are now the new, preferred standard for reminding patients of their appt. With that said, there appears to be a deficit in psychiatric patients getting text reminders of their provider appointments. The project's thrust was to attempt to change this healthcare deficit for patients with a psychiatric illness. This was accomplished by including the intervention of an SMS text reminder before their appointment compared to the previous year around the same time when it was the traditional reminder card and call. The project is a quasi-experimental design, which was backed by a thorough literature review and trying to look for the literature gap.

The project tried to address the goal of lower psychiatric provider no-shows, which can lead to better client care and increase revenue for struggling community clinics, especially due to the model switching to fee for service, which can lead to the closure of community clinics leading to those in the most need without mental healthcare, at all. This project conception tried to use standard Microsoft Office programs to help it be implemented at other programs due to the software already available at most clinics.

Keywords: community health, budget-saving, no-show rates, standard of care, SMS text, informatics, mental health, behavioral health.

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Available for download on Sunday, May 18, 2025

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