As many as one in ten people in Quebec have forgotten to attend a doctor's appointment without cancelling it, but the McGill University Health Centre is trying to change that with a new mobile app.
The MUHC's new application, three years in the making, will allow patients to book appointments. It will then send them a reminder before the appointment, an effort for the hospital network to stem the estimated 46,000 no-shows to appointments every year.
Dr. Tarek Hijal is a radio-oncologist at the McGill University Health Centre, and says that no-shows present serious logistical issues for the hospital. "[It's] around 10% of our appointments," he says, "and the numbers are similar at other hospitals in Quebec."
Hijal says apps like this exist but not with the exact functionality the MUHC wanted, which is why they chose to build their own, "that fills the needs of our hospital", from the ground-up.
The app will also allow patients to see some test results, such as bloodwork.
When it launches this fall, the app will initially only be available to cancer patients at the MUHC, but by next year the aim is to roll out the software to patients across the network, and, potentially, to other healthcare institutions across the province.