Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
9-29-2026
First Advisor
Sandy King
Second Advisor
Beverly Clark
Abstract
Missed appointments disrupt diabetes management, delay treatment, and waste healthcare resources. This quality improvement project evaluated whether patient-centered scheduling, staff education, and multimodal communication reduced no-show rates among adults with diabetes. The Plan-Do-Study-Act model provided the theoretical and implementation framework, while Kotter’s Eight-Step Change Model guided practice change. The uncontrolled preintervention-postintervention project occurred from January through July 2026 in a hospital-based outpatient diabetes clinic. The evidence-based intervention included 45-minute staff education, scheduling based on patients’ preferred days and times, verifying contact information and communication preferences, sending telephone and text reminders, and re-engaging patients the same day after missed appointments. Appointment data were obtained from the electronic health record using an extraction tool. Principal investigator-developed pretraining and post-training surveys described staff perceptions of patient-centered scheduling and training impact. Descriptive statistics summarized appointment and staff-survey findings. A Pearson chi-square test of independence tested the association between project phase and no-show status at α = .05. No-show rates decreased from 26.5% in January to 19.2% in July, a statistically significant 7.3-percentage-point reduction, χ² (1, N = 2,518) = 18.33, p < .001. As a secondary descriptive finding, 17 of 18 staff participants (94.4%) rated education as very helpful in understanding patient-centered scheduling. Limitations included uncontrolled design, confounding, and reliance on electronic documentation. Findings demonstrated meaningful improvement and supported sustaining standardized scheduling workflows to strengthen attendance and continuity of diabetes care.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Mathew, Smitha, "Quality Improvement Project: Improve Patient Show Rate for Appointments at the Outpatient Diabetic Clinic" (2026). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 390.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/390
