What Makes Appointment Booking Software Effective?

Posted on November 8, 2022

The process of scheduling the meetings, examinations, medical tests, and other healthcare practices is around for centuries. Now, digital technologies are facilitating this process by eliminating the wait time and ensuring that patients reach the most specialized practitioners. Appointment booking software systems are at the forefront of this transformation.

This article mentions some of the most noteworthy use cases of such software systems. Moreover, it also shares the essential components of such platforms.

Use Cases of Medical Appointment Booking Software

Appointment scheduling is not only confined to booking a meeting with physician. Following are some of the notable use cases of these systems.

Physician On-demand Booking Platform

You can either schedule an in-person or remote meeting with healthcare practitioners using the on-demand services model. Apart from physicians, these may also be surgeons, pharmacist, or another subject specialist.

There are further variants for in-person meetings. A patient can seek services of doctors at home or at clinics. Either way, the platform ensures that the specialist remains available and serves patients at the scheduled time.

Zocdoc is one of the finest examples. This facility connects patients with service providers including independent practitioners and partnered clinics.

Ambulance Service Scheduling Software

Although ambulance booking is not a new concept, yet it is essential to mention for the sake of comprehensiveness. The aim of appointment booking platform is to provide a range of healthcare services through smartphone app. Thus, the ability to schedule an ambulance or a paratransit vehicle through this platform is vital.

If you intend to introduce on-demand ambulance service, Flare serves as a decent role model. This startup aggregates various ambulance service providers and dispatches the most suitable vehicle depending on the requested type and distance from patient.

Medicine Delivery Job Scheduling Software

Getting a prescribed drug delivered at your doorstep is no less vital. A patient should be able to share the prescription with your on-demand pharmacy. One of your agents deliver the medicine at the indicated location and the patient can pay the delivery charges via credit card or through an in-app e-wallet.

Numerous startups have emerged with this business model. Capsule is notable in New York City. This startup with a total funding amount of $70m to date delivers drugs within two hours. ScriptDash is another notable startup powered by Alto with an impressive Serie C funding of $55m.

Nurse At-home Scheduling

There is little or no doubt in the fact that US population is aging. Consequently, the need for at-home nursing agents is rising. Besides, families are inclining toward keeping nannies for childcare. Thus, scheduling nursing services should also be an option in appointment booking platform.

Besides these use cases, there is a wide range of applications for such platforms. Businesses can enhance their services by facilitating customers with immaculately designed and developed scheduling software.

Also Read: A Guide to Enterprise and Consumer App Development

Components of Appointment Booking Platform

Telephone calls served as the top medium for booking appointments. Websites replaced phone calls and remained the primary booking source until recent past. The contemporary era of smartphones demands mobile apps as the medium for appointment scheduling.

A comprehensive appointment booking software should have following components.

App for Patients

Patients or their guardians should be able to schedule an app via their smartphones. The app should be simple enough to allow the least literate individuals to schedule appointment without needing to have any technical understanding.

Personalization in booking platforms is vital. It is achieved by providing unique profiles for each patient so that they can instantly retrieve medical history or EHR.

Developing a dedicated appointment scheduling platform for a business is one case but many startups serve as a gateway between customers and a range of healthcare providers. In this latter case, the patient should be able to search and select the provider of their choice.

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Moreover, the platform can also suggest the most relevant providers depending on the specialization that a patient intends to seek.

Many healthcare providers collaborate with on-demand scheduling startups to appear at the top of search results. The startups earn monetary commission in return.

Administration Panel

This software serves as the middleman between patients and service agents. It also validates each request for appointment and confirms its schedule.

An admin panel should have an extensive dashboard with scheduled appointments. It should show the pending requests besides in-progress and past ones.

It is notable that the process of scheduling should not require phone call or in-person meeting. Instead, patients should be able to book any available timeslot from an in-app calendar. As a consequence, the admin can verify the appointment by connecting the request with most relevant healthcare practitioner.

Also Read: Robotic Process Automation in Healthcare Industry/i>

The panel should also feature interactive charts and graphs depicting performance of business. Some of the key performance indicators include: difference in the number of bookings from previous week, month, and quarter; number of new visitors; percentage increase in the number of positive reviews.

App for Service Agents

Service agent apps are only required when you are providing on-demand medical services through independent gig workers. Otherwise, administration panel with an app for patients should be sufficient if you are scheduling for an in-house team of practitioners.

The admin panel also serves as dispatch panel to connect the suitable healthcare service providers with patients. It is notable that the entire scheduling process should be automated. Patients choose the timeslot of their choice. The admin panel software confirms the request and dispatches the relevant practitioner by considering the availability of providers.

The app should allow independent practitioners to reveal their flexible work hours. It should also empower practitioners to confirm or decline a scheduled service.

This appointment booking platform comprising apps for patients and practitioners along with an admin panel should be interactive. In essence, the practitioners should be able to access EHR of patients as soon as they confirm appointment request. Besides, it is also advisable to keep the platform cloud-based so that it scalability is easier.

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