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Medical scheduling software helps reserve people, rooms, and equipment for medical visits and procedures
sample medical scheduling software project
This scheduling system was a relatively simple system designed to streamline the scheduling of appointments for the members of an independent physician association at four hospitals.
The two goals of the program were as follows:
- Increase the chance that the patient would schedule their specialist appointment by helping them to do it immediately after receiving a recommendation from their PCP.
- Ensure that the appointment would be reimbursable by the patient’s insurance company by using the plan information and the interval guideline of a separation of at least a year for routine visits in the appointment availability search.
Features include:
- Bases “First available appointment” on specific patient information.
- Indicates when appointments are available using a color-coded calendar.
- Uses patient preferences for the appointment search, such as time of day.
overview of medical scheduling software
Medical scheduling systems take into account the availability of the patient, what will be done during the visit, healthcare provider schedules, equipment schedules, and room schedules. The goal is to automate the process of finding the resources that you need for a specific patient, so that they can be scheduled for that time.
For example, a kidney transplant may require a certain nurse based on the physician who is performing it, so they both need to be available in order for an appointment to be made. Also, resources such as an operating theater with a certain type of pulse oximeter may be required based on the patient's risk of complication. The appointment type and the physician involved can also determine how long an appointment will take.
Finally, the severity of the medical need for the appointment should also be assessed. For example, while acne is embarrassing, it is much more important to see a skin cancer patient quickly than an acne patient. There can also be pre and post operative requirements, such as a recovery room or a bed that need to be scheduled at the same time.
As much of this stuff as possible should be addressed by the scheduling software to simplify the process of making an appointment. In those minutes that the patient is on the phone, hopefully the software can be handling this, so the person doing the scheduling can focus on providing great customer service rather than doing these availability calculations. And the physician can focus on patient care, rather than hoping that all of the proper equipment will be available.
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