New Online Appointment System for Hospitals

In the present circumstances of distancing requirements to avoid infection due to Covid-19 virus,  all hospitals have to change their OPDs with over crowded patients and shift to online appointment.

Dnyandeep Infotech has developed such web application and we wish to redesign it to suit latest requirements of mobile chat and many other features.

India has a rich tradition of providing excellent and economical health services and holds a noble status in the world health sector. There are numerous super specialty hospitals with modern diagnostic equipment's and expert medical professionals in all major towns in India. Large number of patients from villages and remote places come to these hospitals for consultation and medical treatment. Even the patients from nearby countries especially from Middle East prefer Indian hospitals for their treatment  instead of costly health services available in Europe and America.

Though the Indian hospitals excel  in providing proper diagnosis and treatment and have elaborate hospital management system, there seems to be some lacuna in handling outdoor patient department in these hospitals. This is due to overcrowded waiting rooms with long and unpredictable waiting time for needy patients  who come from remote places.

In western countries, there is no such difficulty to patients as all the appointments are pre-arranged through internet. Patient can fix his appointment with time, date and name of consultant for consultation or treatment in advance from his home or workplace using internet. At the designated time, when he visits the hospital, the receptionist is ready with case paper and gives an electronic docket for signaling visit alert. Now patient is free to visit  the photo gallery, library or computer room or stroll through a garden. As soon as consultant is free for visit, red light on the docket of patient blinks with request to proceed for the  visit.( this takes maximum 10 to 15 minutes).  The hospitals there provide all such amenities for the patients and naturally the cost of medical treatment is exorbitant. It is not possible or advisable  for Indian hospitals to provide such services, but the online appointment system is well in their reach.

I think, the word 'patient' is derived from 'patience' suggesting the behavior of those waiting in the waiting room of OPD. Many doctors working in rural area send the patients to specialists and big hospitals for expert advice or advanced medical treatment. Patients in large numbers come to such doctors or hospitals. The consultant generally prepares a strict time schedule for best utilization of his available time. But such time planning  is not possible for patients. They do not know the number of patients already waiting before his visit and as the time required for each visit varies, he cannot estimate the total waiting time. This results in long waiting times. In many cases, it is unbearable for some patients to sit at one place for long time. For children and child patients, it is more annoying. There is a risk for children to get affected by viral infection due to nearby patients. Generally patient is accompanied by his relative. In case of people from villages, there may be more number of such people. They have to spend time by taking leave from from their regular work. It happens sometimes, that the doctor/consultant is not available due to personal reason or some emergency. In such cases, patient has to arrange for stay in some hotel. In big cities, this is quite costly and inconvenient. Due to these reasons, many a times, patients prefer to go to nearby hospital instead of the hospital which has all facilities required for his medication. Naturally he loses the advantage of correct diagnosis and treatment. City Hospital also loses a real needy patient.

The present system of appointment by phone inquiry is not effective in solving this problem.  The receptionist can inform the general timing of availability of particular doctor/consultant but does not know the actual time schedule of the doctor. As the appointment can be confirmed only after payment of due fees, telephone appointment remains to be a general information service.

Considering all these difficulties, Dnyandeep Infotech Pvt. Ltd. , a leading software company in web technology, developed Online Appointment System suitable for Indian hospitals. This system was installed  in ‘Anuradha Eye Clinic” a well known hospital in Sangli (Maharashtra) six years back and is being used by remote patients.

In this system, the patient or his relative can view from his home, the availability of concerned doctor/consultant  on the hospital website. Availability timetables of all doctors along with their profile, photo and field of specialization are stored securely in the database on remote server. The  visitor can register his name by filling a secure login form and fix his appointment with specific doctor on particular date and time as per his convenience and doctor’s open time slot. He has to confirm appointment by doing  payment of appointment fee by using net banking , debit or credit card.

To preserve the secrecy of password and security of financial transaction,  the OAS software uses Payment Gateway services provided by recognized well known financial transaction company CCAVENUE, Mumbai. CCAVENUE deducts some percent of the payment amount as their transaction fee and levies some annual affiliation charges for the continuance of service. Dnyandeep provides all assistance to complete the formalities in affiliation of hospital with CCAVENUE payment system. Visitor is authorized to add more members desirous of appointment, hence once visitor from family has registered his name, it is easy for his relatives or friends to avail this facility.

The hospital  administrator is authorized to add new doctors/consultants, change working hours and days of hospital calendar and track the visitor registration and payment transactions. The individual doctors/consultants can upload their profile, photo and information about their field of specialization through web interface. He also can make changes in the general hospital calendar and customize it for his time schedule.

 The main advantage of this software is almost no maintenance requirement of desktop applications or computer system. Everything is online and accessible and maintainable from anywhere through net connectivity.

The entire software is now in process of redesign with latest web technology and new user friendly features will be added in the system. The cost of such development is Rs. 10 lakhs and we have to complete it in two months. If funding is available, we can share the ownership with the party.

The software was having front end design in old   flash technology  (which is outdated now) and  Kohana 3. ( Which has been abandoned with advent of new frameworks in market) at back end and was running for 6 years at Anuradha Eye Hospital in Sangli. Now we have taken it for redesign. You can see the demo and workflow of software at http://oasplus.com

I hope that Indian hospitals will take advantage of this unique software and ensure accessibility of its experts to remote or patients with busy schedule who can’t sustain long unpredictable waiting for appointment or risk of infection due to patients in waiting room.