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Effect of an Online Appointment Scheduling System on Evaluation Metrics of Outpatient Scheduling System: a before-after MulticenterStudy

  • Patient Facing Systems
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Abstract

Online appointment scheduling systems have been designed in response to the problems of the traditional ones. In Iran, most outpatient clinics and our study population suffer from high patient’ no-show rate and long waiting times because of not using online appointment scheduling system. In this study, the effect of an online appointment scheduling system was investigated by comparing the evaluation metrics of appointment scheduling before and after the intervention. This before-after pilot study was conducted on ten outpatient clinics with different specializations. Five clinics were selected as the intervention group and five clinics as the control group. A checklist was designed to evaluate appointment scheduling metrics. These checklists were completed from April to July 2017 in the pre-implementation phase and from September to December 2017 in the post-implementation phase. The evaluation metrics were evaluated before and after the implementation of the online appointment scheduling system. A total of 470 checklists containing 9034 patients’ information and 460 checklists containing 9130 patients’ information were completed at the pre- and post-implementation phases, respectively. There were significant positive effect on the improvement of the three metrics means, including Patient waiting time (38.2 min before vs. 23.8 min after the intervention), No-show rate (25% before vs. 11% after the intervention), and Physician punctuality (−30 min before vs. -14.2 min after the intervention). The use of an online appointment scheduling system was successful in improving several evaluation metrics in our target population and resulted in continued usage in intervention group clinics.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. The authors would like to acknowledge “Research Deputy” Mashhad University of Medical Sciences for financial supports. We thank physicians and staff of 10 outpatient clinics.

Funding

This study was funded by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Information Technology, Varastegan Institute for Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Mohammad Reza Mazaheri Habibi

  2. Department of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Mohammad Reza Mazaheri Habibi, Hamed Tabesh, Hasan Vakili-Arki & Saeid Eslami

  3. Students Research Committee, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Fahimeh Mohammadabadi

  4. Department of Medical Informatics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ameen Abu-Hanna & Saeid Eslami

  5. Pharmaceutical Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Saeid Eslami

Authors
  1. Mohammad Reza Mazaheri Habibi
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  2. Fahimeh Mohammadabadi
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  3. Hamed Tabesh
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  4. Hasan Vakili-Arki
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  5. Ameen Abu-Hanna
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  6. Saeid Eslami
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Saeid Eslami.

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Conflict of interest

Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. The permission was obtained from the Ethics Committee with No. IR.MUMS.fm.REC1395.312. All procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

Informed consent

All physicians and staff of clinics participated voluntarily and were verbally informed about their privacy.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Patient Facing Systems

Appendix A

Appendix A

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Habibi, M.R.M., Mohammadabadi, F., Tabesh, H. et al. Effect of an Online Appointment Scheduling System on Evaluation Metrics of Outpatient Scheduling System: a before-after MulticenterStudy. J Med Syst 43, 281 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-019-1383-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-019-1383-5

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