Trial reportBMC medicine2018
A model of access combining triage with initial management reduced waiting time for community outpatient services: a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in BMC medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Service-level interventions to reduce waiting time in outpatient and community health settings may be sustained: a systematic review.BMJ open quality · 2025Pooled it
- Service redesign interventions to reduce waiting time for paediatric rehabilitation and therapy services: A systematic review of the literature.Health & social care in the community · 2022Pooled it
- Trial
- Sustainable waiting time reductions after introducing the STAT model for access and triage: 12-month follow up of a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial.BMC health services research · 2020Trial
- Article
- Reducing wait times for hospital-based outpatient mental healthcare: what works?BMJ open quality · 2026Article
- Workforce Allocation in Urban Community Mental Health Services: GIS-Based Analytical Insights for Policy and Planning.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Sustainability of an intervention to reduce waiting for access to an epilepsy outpatient clinic.Heliyon · 2024Article
- An innovative model of access and triage to reduce waiting in an outpatient epilepsy clinic: an intervention study.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- The Emergency nurse Protocols Initiating Care-Sydney Triage to Admission Risk Tool (EPIC-START) trial: protocol for a stepped wedge implementation trial.Implementation science communications · 2023Article
- Improving Administrative Outcomes in Physiotherapy by Adopting Open-Access Booking.Physiotherapy Canada. Physiotherapie Canada · 2022Article
- Return on investment of a model of access combining triage with initial management: an economic analysis.BMJ open · 2021Article
- A Multi-Faceted Strategy for Evidence Translation Reduces Healthcare Waiting Time: A Mixed Methods Study Using the RE-AIM Framework.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2021Article
- Specific timely appointments for triage to reduce wait times in a medical outpatient clinic: protocol of a pre-post study with process evaluation.BMC health services research · 2019Article
- Staff perspectives of a model of access and triage for reducing waiting time in ambulatory services: a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLong waiting times are associated with public community outpatient health services. This trial aimed to determine if a new model of care based on evidence-based strategies that improved patient flow in two small pilot trials could be used to reduce waiting time across a variety of services. The key principle of the Specific Timely Appointments for Triage (STAT) model is that patients are booked directly into protected assessment appointments and triage is combined with initial management as an alternative to a waiting list and triage system.
methodsA stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted between October 2015 and March 2017, involving 3116 patients at eight sites across a major Australian metropolitan health network.
resultsThe intervention reduced waiting time to first appointment by 33.8% (IRR = 0.663, 95% CI 0.516 to 0.852, P = 0.001). Median waiting time decreased from a median of 42 days (IQR 19 to 86) in the control period to a median of 24 days (IQR 13 to 48) in the intervention period. A substantial reduction in variability was also noted. The model did not impact on most secondary outcomes, including time to second appointment, likelihood of discharge by 12 weeks and number of appointments provided, but was associated with a small increase in the rate of missed appointments.
conclusionsBroad-scale implementation of a model of access and triage that combined triage with initial management and actively managed the relationship between supply and demand achieved substantial reductions in waiting time without adversely impacting on other aspects of care. The reductions in waiting time are likely to have been driven, primarily, by substantial reductions for those patients previously considered low priority.
trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12615001016527 registration date: 29/09/2015.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.