According to a survey carried out by news, almost 300,000 consultations in Norwegian hospitals have not been carried out so far this year. The reason is that people do not turn up – and that many do not report their absence either. The figure makes up about 5% of all appointments, almost 6.7 million consultations annually. At the same time, 467,373 patients are on the waiting list to get an appointment. Now employees are sounding the alarm about how serious it is for the company that people don’t show up for their classes. Cannot give the appointments to other patients Harald Sunde is the medical specialist director at Finnmarkssykehuset. He explains that the 6-7% who do not show up means that they do not get to utilize their capacity. A large part of the hours that people do not attend cannot be used to help other patients. – For example, if we have a patient who is going to examine the colon, it involves an emptying regimen. If the appointment is canceled the day before, it is not easy to call in a new patient at very short notice, says Sunde. Department director Harald Sunde at Finnmarkssykehuset hopes that the digitization of appointments will lead to even more of their scheduled consultations being used. Photo: Kristina Kalinina All scheduled consultations and operations at Norwegian hospitals are carefully planned. Certain operations may involve up to 30 employees. The consequences when the absences build up are significant. If you don’t show up for your appointment, potentially a whole bunch of healthcare personnel will lose the time they have set aside to help you. Therefore, the hospitals are completely dependent on people showing up. The outpatient clinics get a lot more work Frida Gamst Hagen is an office worker at the outpatient ear-nose-throat department at the University Hospital of Northern Norway (UNN). She confirms that the waiting lists are very long. Those who do not show up often have to be set up for new appointments – which in turn leads to even longer lists. The health secretary believes that the biggest problem with people not turning up is not that it is expensive: but that operations suffer. – The doctor who is at the outpatient clinic is there to take away patients. If no one shows up for class, the time is usually directly wasted. Hagen encourages people to request a notification from Helsenorge when something new happens with the appointment they have made, to avoid consultations being forgotten. The economy is affected when patients do not show up – So far this year, we have had 254,500 consultations, and 11,749 of these have not turned up. This amounts to NOK 2.2 million in pure costs. That’s what the chief financial officer at the University Hospital of Northern Norway (UNN), Lars Øverås, says. Øverås believes that the financial loss is not the worst for the hospital: – We could help other patients faster if people showed up for their appointments. Lars Øverås says it costs Northern Norway’s largest hospital 2.2 million annually that people do not attend their appointments. Photo: Per-Christian Johansen / Per-Christian Johansen Around 11,000 patients are on a waiting list at any time to receive a consultation at UNN. The average waiting time for a patient is 79 days. This is almost on the national average, which according to the Directorate of Health is 75 days. Thus, the proportion of patients who have not attended an appointment at UNN is currently greater than the proportion of patients who are waiting for an appointment. – We don’t know why people don’t show up, says Øverås. The healthcare system knows that many people do not show up. 2 years ago, the Directorate of Health took action by increasing the fee for not showing up to agreed hours. The cost of NOK 1,053, as well as canceling at least 24 hours before the lesson, does not seem to have had a clear enough effect. Harald Sunde at Finnmarkssykehuset believes that increased digitization can improve the situation. He believes that a combination of digital call-in routines and the fact that the patient speaks up earlier so that the hospital can provide fewer unused hours. He believes that having to wait for a physical letter in an envelope is cumbersome. The healthcare system largely uses invitations in the form of letters for hospital consultations. At Finnmarkssykehuset, there are approximately 100,000 outpatient consultations annually. 6-7% of these hours the patients do not attend. Photo: Eirik Sørenmo Påsche Sunde says there are good reasons for this, as sensitive information is not as easy to digitize. That is why hours at hairdressers, car repairers or craftsmen are still easier to move around, compared to the healthcare system. Sunde believes that the explanation for so many not turning up is complex. Some get well until the class, and no longer need health care. Some become sicker and receive other help in the meantime. Still others are prevented by logistics or family reasons, or simply forget their classes. The subject director encourages those who know they cannot attend to notify them as soon as possible. The director hopes Finnmarkshykehuset can send out electronic summons letters to remedy the situation. They hope this will be in place during the year. But there are no aggregated national statistics on the actual reasons why people do not attend. Until then, valuable consultation time in Norwegian hospitals is lost, every day.
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Almost 300,000 consultations have not been carried out because people do not turn up – news Troms and Finnmark
