The Utilization of Physician Cell Phone Numbers by Patients in an Orthopaedic Surgery Practice

CATEGORY: Other; Basic Sciences/Biologics INTRODUCTION/PURPOSE: There are a wide variety of ways in which physicians choose to manage communications with their patients outside of official visits and interactions. Some defer to ancillary staff/services (e.g. surgery schedulers, medical assistants) or mid-level providers (e.g. registered nurses, physicians assistants) until the situation warrants a call back directly from the physician. Less commonly, some choose to provide their cell phone number to patients to provide them with direct access should the need arise. The purpose of this prospective study was to explore to what extent patients utilize the cell phone numbers of orthopaedic surgeons in the immediate period after it is provided to them. METHODS: Seven fellowship-trained orthopaedic surgeons from 5 different subspecialties (adult reconstruction, foot and ankle, hand and wrist, spine, sports) in a single private, multi-site orthopaedic surgery group located in a major metropolitan area each provided their personal cell phone number to approximately 30 consecutive patients during a 1-month period. The surgeon’s phone number was written down on a business card, and the surgeons themselves provided the card to the patient. Phone calls and voice mail messages received in the 30 days following the patient receiving the phone number were recorded, and the reasons for these calls were categorized as being ‘appropriate’ (e.g. acute postoperative issues, unclear instructions) or ‘inappropriate’ (e.g. administrative issues, medication refills, advanced imaging-related inquires). Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine if any patient variable or surgeon subspecialty was independently associated with calling the surgeon cell phone number. RESULTS: Two-hundred seven patients, average age 51.5 years, were provided cell phone numbers. During the 30 days following administration of cell phone numbers, 21 patients (10.1%) made calls to their surgeon, for an average of 0.15 calls per patient. Six patients (2.9%) called more than once. Seventeen calls (54.8%) were deemed appropriate, and 14 calls (45.2%) inappropriate. Student’s t-tests (age) and chi-square analysis (sex, visit type, surgeon subspecialty) did not reveal significant difference between callers and non-callers (Table 2). Sports had the highest proportion of patients calling (16.9%), whereas foot & ankle had the lowest (4.0%), though surgeon subspecialty did not differ significantly (p=.3119). Logistic regression analysis did not reveal age (p=.7147), sex (p=.8230), visit type (p=.8745), or surgeon subspecialty (p=.1960) to be associated with calling. CONCLUSION: Our study has demonstrated a low rate of patient utilization of surgeon cell phone number when provided to them. If surgeons choose to provide their cell phone number to patients, we recommend specifying appropriate reasons to call in order to maximize the effectiveness of this communication method.