Improving patient outcomes isn’t just about having the right treatments and technology—it’s about understanding human behaviour. At Appt Health, we use behavioural science to help people make healthier choices, attend appointments, and engage with care in ways that work for them.
Behavioural science studies how people make decisions—often in ways that aren’t entirely rational—and how we can design interventions to encourage positive change. It draws from psychology (APA), sociology (ASA), behavioural economics (Behavioral Economics Guide), and cognitive science (Cognitive Science Society) to help explain why patients engage—or don’t engage—with healthcare services.
At Appt Health, we don’t just assume what will work—we apply evidence-based behavioural science to make it easier for patients to take action on their health.
How Behavioural Science Improves Healthcare
Behavioural science has been applied across healthcare to remove barriers and make healthier choices the easier choices. Here are some of the ways it’s making a difference:
Patient Engagement: Encouraging more people to attend screenings, take prescribed medication, and adopt healthier habits.
Better Communication: Designing messages that feel personal, relevant, and motivating.
Smarter System Design: Informing policies that make it easier for people to access care and avoid missed appointments.
Digital Health Solutions: Improving how people interact with online booking systems, apps, and remote healthcare services.
Real-World Examples of Behavioural Science in Action
These approaches are already proving their impact in healthcare:
Nudging for Preventive Care: A study in the US found that personalised SMS reminders (including a child’s name) significantly increased flu vaccination rates among children.
Framing and Messaging: A trial in Spain showed that text message invitations were just as effective as traditional letters in getting people to attend breast cancer screenings.
Defaults and Simplification: In the UK, the NHS automatically booked patients into annual reviews, allowing them to reschedule if needed. This small change reduced missed appointments and saved costs.
Gamification and Incentives: A review found that financial incentives and game-like rewards in health apps boosted medication adherence and physical activity.
The Appt Health Impact: Boosting Targeted Lung Health Check Uptake
In the short term, increasing overall activity is an important metric for any screening programme—commissioners set targets that must be met. But in the long run, patient uptake rates are the most impactful metric, as they determine whether preventive programmes succeed in identifying asymptomatic cases.
Most national screening programmes take a population-wide approach, inviting all eligible patients to attend over a period of time. This leads to ambitious uptake targets, such as the 80% acceptable uptake rate for cervical screening. However, achieving high public participation is a challenge—in 2021, only one out of over 200 commissioning regions in the UK achieved this cervical screening target.
In North Kirklees, Targeted Lung Health Check (TLHC) uptake rates were initially 42%, above the national pilot site average of 38%, but still short of the highest-performing site, which reached 48% uptake. Appt Health changed that.
By applying behavioural science-driven engagement strategies, we helped increase uptake beyond initial expectations, demonstrating that smarter, targeted patient outreach can significantly improve participation rates in vital screening programmes.
How Appt Health Uses Behavioural Science to Drive Engagement
At Appt Health, we use these principles to increase screening and health check attendance, particularly in groups that typically have lower engagement.
Our technology:
1. Uses behaviourally informed messaging to make invitations feel personal, relevant, and actionable.
2. Ensures timing, wording, and delivery methods are designed to remove friction and make responding easy.
3. Integrates seamlessly with NHS systems, using patient data (in a privacy-safe way) to tailor outreach to real-world behaviours.
By applying behavioural insights, we’re removing barriers, making healthcare more accessible, and helping more people get the care they need—sooner rather than later.
Final Thoughts
Behavioural science isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a powerful tool for making healthcare work better for patients. By understanding how people think, act, and engage with care, we can design smarter, more effective ways to get them through the door and into the right services.
At Appt Health, this is at the core of everything we do. Because when healthcare is built around real human behaviour, everybody benefits.