Ease, efficiency, excellence: Automated appointment management delivers major benefits for the NHS
OTTO pilot at University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust
The estimated annual cost of patients failing to attend NHS appointments is currently a staggering £1 billion, with antiquated letter-based communication exacerbating a problem that diverts vital money and resources away from frontline care.
But now there’s a solution – an intuitive technological platform that not only enhances patient choice, but has already proved it’s possible to reduce cancelled and missed (did not attend, or DNA) appointments by almost half, and to do it almost overnight.
About OTTO
OTUA is the creator of OTTO, a digital administration assistant that automates the patient appointment journey. It uses intuitive AI voice technology to call and interact with thousands of patients simultaneously via telephone, making booking healthcare appointments easy and accessible for all.
OTTO enhances both patient choice and productivity, allowing long waiting lists to be tackled faster and saving the NHS valuable time, money and resources to reinvest into frontline care.
During a trial in the cardiology department at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), the results exceeded all expectations – and now it’s being rolled out at pace across multiple sites so that the Trust can reap the rewards at scale.
“OTTO is transforming the way patients interact with our services, improving their booking experience and helping us deliver care more efficiently and effectively.”
Clare Rose, Head of Patient Access and Co-ordination,
University Hospitals Leicester
Understanding the challenges
UHL’s cardiology department was running a ‘fully booked’ service to notify patients of their appointment time by letter, sometimes 12 months in advance. However, due to a range of complex factors such as clashes with staff annual leave schedules, the system was incredibly unpredictable and unreliable – with some patients experiencing up to seven cancellations before they finally attended an appointment.
This led to extended waits and confusion, compounded by difficulties reaching the UHL appointment-booking service via phone to amend slots. The result was a significant increase in both DNAs and administration time spent managing continual changes to clinics.
The OTTO effect
OTTO got to work seamlessly alongside UHL’s existing booking team and internal systems. The platform can call and interact with thousands of patients a day, including out of hours – working at least five times more efficiently than a human operator.
By giving patients the ability to book and rebook appointments 24/7 at their convenience, using just a telephone and without the need for any technical expertise, OTTO enabled the implementation of a partial booking system at UHL and, over an 18-week period, led to:
reduction in administrative time
reduction in DNA incidents
reduction in cancellations
increase in booked appointment utilisation
of appointment slots backfilled after short-notice cancellations
of appointments reallocated after patient unavailability confirmed
People using the service were aged up to 96 years and reported OTTO to be accessible, user-friendly and easy to navigate.
As well as spearheading departmental efficiencies, OTTO has enabled the cardiology team to return its full focus to what it does best – delivering high-class healthcare.
OTTO: a critical part of a better NHS future
The NHS’s 10-year plan identifies artificial intelligence as one of the five ‘transformative’ technologies that will underpin the next decade of healthcare.
Alongside the booking utilisation quandary facing many Trusts, an NHS England report shows that 7.6% of outpatient appointments booked in 2021/22 ended in a DNA – a monthly average of 650,000 unfilled slots. Among the most common reasons were misunderstandings over appointment times and dates, scheduling issues and administrative problems.
OTTO’s proven AI platform is increasingly being trusted to address these challenges, helping to clear the path to a new era of healthcare with patient need truly at its heart.