86% drop in daily reminder calls: how St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton transformed appointment reminders in one week
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~86%
Drop in daily reminder calls
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Full coverage
For patients with or without MyChart
The Challenge
Prior to implementing an automated reminder solution, appointment reminders at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (St. Joe’s) were delivered by administrative staff through telephone calls. Staff were responsible for contacting patients individually to confirm appointments, provide directions, and communicate any preparation instructions required for their visit. This process was time-consuming, often required multiple attempts to reach patients, and represented a significant administrative workload.
Even when patients were successfully reached, important information was communicated verbally, creating the potential for details to be forgotten or misunderstood before the appointment date.
Across a large healthcare organization with multiple registration and scheduling areas, the cumulative volume of appointment reminder calls was substantial, requiring considerable staff time and resources.
“Our staff were already busy booking appointments, registering patients and managing daily workflows. Finding time to make reminder calls on top of those responsibilities was a significant challenge.”
The Solution
In April 2026, St. Joe’s went live with automated reminders, deployed as a diagnostic imaging-wide pilot on top of an existing PocketHealth footprint that already included Patient Connect with MyChart SSO integration and Provider Sharing. PocketHealth Appointment Reminders seamlessly integrate with Epic through an HL7 integration: whenever an appointment is booked or rescheduled, Epic automatically notifies PocketHealth through an HL7 message and a reminder is sent to that patient.
Complementing Epic MyChart, PocketHealth Appointment Reminders ensure that every patient is reached regardless of whether they have signed up for or regularly log in their portal. Rather than a single phone call that may go unanswered, patients now receive multiple touchpoints per appointment: automated reminders at intervals the team controls, modality-specific prep instructions tailored to their exact procedure, wayfinding information and a post-exam prompt letting them know they can access their imaging results through PocketHealth. The result is a connected communication experience that helps patients arrive informed and prepared, and keeps them engaged after their visit.
St. Joe’s chose PocketHealth because of its focus on patient experience and a clearer implementation timeline. They also valued the flexibility to customize message content and cadence, with requested changes completed quickly, as well as the ability to send modality-specific, prep instructions that help make sure every patient arrives informed and ready for their exact procedure, directly reducing the last-minute cancellations that disrupt a day’s imaging schedule.
“With PocketHealth, I’m confident that what’s being delivered has been thoroughly tested and will work as expected. I appreciate that patient experience remains at the center of everything they do.”
The Results
The impact was immediate, both in call volume and in staff capacity.
- ~86% drop in daily reminder calls: From roughly 400 to 50 within the first week of go-live
- Increased staff capacity: Administrative workload meaningfully reduced, and redirected to higher-value patient support work
- Patients arriving better informed and better prepared: Every patient receives tailored, modality-specific preparation instructions ahead of their appointment, along with location & wayfinding information, and post-exam access to results, helping reduce last-minute cancellations and underprepared arrivals
- A single admin dashboard for tracking: Replacing manual tracking of patient responses with a reporting view staff can filter site, status, appointment date and more
Staff also noticed a shift day-to-day. Reminder calls had been part of many clerks’ regular workload, and removing that task freed up time for other responsibilities while still ensuring patients received complete, accurate information ahead of their visit.
About PocketHealth
PocketHealth automates the operational complexity of healthcare: the manual, non-clinical work that surrounds every patient visit. For more than a decade, the company has automated this work from both the provider and patient sides, building a distinct understanding of how providers operate and how patients engage in their care. Its agentic operations platform extends that expertise across the enterprise, automating non-clinical workflows end-to-end while working inside existing systems and adapting to each site’s SOPs. The result for providers: improved capacity, financial performance and patient outcomes. PocketHealth is SOC 2 and HIPAA and PHIPA compliant, and trusted by 900+ health systems. Request a demo today.
