Patient's punctuality in an outpatient clinic: the role of age, medical branch and geographical factors

Background: The efficiency of the management of an outpatient clinic largely depends on the administration of patient flows and waiting times increase costs and affect clinical quality. In this study, we verify if the visit acceptance times are influenced by demographic or geographical factors in a large cohort of patients referred to a city and suburban private outpatient multidisciplinary clinic. Methods We included all scheduled visits of patients aged from 18 to 75 years who arrived in 2021, 2022 and 2023 in our private outpatient clinics, consisting of 34 medical clinics scattered in Milan metropolitan city and hinterland. The variables collected were age, visit time, check-in time, address of the medical clinic and its distance from the closest underground station, patient typology (new business vs. follow-up patient), and the medical branch of the visit. Outcome is ’punctuality’, defined as visit time minus check-in time (in minutes). Results We considered a sample of 410.808 visits from January 2021 to April 2023. The majority of patients check-in early (84.4%) and we found that the percentage of punctual patients increases linearly with age. Earlier hours in the morning show the worst punctuality pattern as well as blood draws in the analysis of different medical branches. We also observed that patients who already had some activity recorded in our systems show the worst pattern of punctuality. No particular differences emerged considering the geographical location of the clinics. Conclusions Younger patients have worse punctuality than older patients. Moreover, earlier hour slots are the most disadvantaged and the medical specialty has an influence on the arrival habits. This data should be considered for better clinical quality and efficiency.