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.
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.
