Increasing Parental Buy-In for Well-Child Visit Compliance Through a Pre-Visit Telephone Education Program

Abstract

Purpose: This quality improvement project aimed at increasing the number of children receiving well-child visits within Little Star Pediatrics. Background: Non-compliance with well child visit (WCV) schedules puts children at risk for potential developmental delays, delayed referrals, poor dental health, missed vaccinations, lack of mental health surveillance and risk for preventable and treatable common childhood conditions. Within the Little Star Pediatrics clinic in Arizona, the rate of well child visit compliance was a concern, and an educational driven intervention to increase awareness about well child visit compliance was implemented to mitigate this problem. Methods: The project utilized a descriptive and quantitative approach to analyze the desired goals and outcomes of the educational phone call intervention. Data was collected from patient schedule audits and pre- and post-surveys, to measure the rate of visit compliance among the sample population. Results: The project achieved a 10.5% participation rate at the end of the 8 weeks. Parents who participated denied lack of transportation as a barrier to well child visit compliance. The post-survey identified 100% of the participants understood the importance of keeping their well child visit appointments, and agreed information provided in the intervention was helpful for future appointments. Only one participant kept their rescheduled well child visit appointment, and agreed new information was learned, contributed to them keeping their well child visit appointment, and agreed everyone should receive this information. That same participant reported texting is the most convenient mode of communication for future education. Findings of this project supported that since the start of the intervention, there was a 5.12% decrease in missed well child visit within Little Star Pediatrics. To conclude, the top three ages with the most missed well child visit included children 9,12, and 15 months old. Conclusions: Although an increase of 5.12% compliance was achieved during the 8 weeks of the intervention, further data is needed to support the proposed project outcomes. The quality improvement project contributes valuable information for future practice, but a larger sample size is needed to support the relevance of the intervention within Little Star Pediatrics.