Penn Medicine's telemedicine-driven fertility program cut treatment wait times almost in half from 97 days to 41 days, according to research published in NEJM Catalyst.
Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania assessed the Fast Track to Fertility Program implemented at Penn Medicine, which aims to boost access to fertility care for patients who are struggling to conceive, and found that it ultimately leads to lower wait times, more patients served, lower no-show rates, and improved satisfaction, according to a Oct. 10 press release.
The program also increased patient capacity, leading to a 24 percent jump in the number of patients treated in the year it was implemented.
The program includes a team of advanced practice providers who conduct telehealth-based visits with new patients. Patients also gain access to AI-based text messaging systems to guide them through their initial examinations.
Early pilots of the program, which used humans rather than AI to text patients, reduced new patient visit wait times by 88 percent, leading to an average wait time of only four days.
The program also dropped the rate of no-show appointments from 40 to 20 percent.
"Most of the people who seek fertility care have been trying to get pregnant for at least a year, so the emotional stakes are high and they really want to get started as soon as possible,” said the study's senior author and Fast Track to Fertility co-founder, Anuja Dokras, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chair of Gynecology for the Women's Health Service Line. "Our findings show that this program can significantly speed up the time to treatment and, in so doing, opens the door for so many more people. These findings show this way of doing things can make real differences in people’s lives."