These authors also stated that approximately 53% of the participants did not use the online appointment service because they were unaware of its existence. For instance, in a retrospective study of a web-based appointment system (WAS) and the queuing method in China, the authors concluded that the patients using the WAS had a higher level of satisfaction with registration when compared to those who use the queuing method who experienced a longer waiting time. This may be one of the reasons why there are several studies about the online or web-based appointment system. The online appointment system is “a win-win solution for patients and physicians…” (p. Furthermore it is stated that “Good quality care needs to be delivered at the earliest and at the proper time which is basic right of consumers” (p. Quality care is seen as the “central dimensions of public health” (p. A well-designed scheduling system would contain “three types of decisions: appointment rule, patient classification, and adjust for no-show and walk-in” (pp. It is stated that the “overall goal of a well-designed appointment system is to achieve a balance among the competing and conflicting goals of minimizing the patient time and the doctor’s idle time and overtime” (p. Daily scheduling has been said to improve the “capacity utilisation by letting providers to fit appointment of varying length in a daily schedule, by which providers can take care of deviations from planned clinic time and scheduled appointments” (p. 29).Ī number of studies have been done on scheduling (e.g. The term appointment was defined by Mardiah and Basri as “the period of time allocated in the schedule to a particular patient’s visit” (p. This has led to empirical studies being done to address patients’ complaints on waiting time, online appointment (scheduling) system, expectations, and improving the quality of services offered others focus mainly on patient satisfaction. At times, some of the users demand better operational management due to lack of quality service. In some institutions, the health care centre is designed to provide general outpatient care and programmes such as health education and counselling for staff and students. One of these settings is within the campus of institutions of higher learning. Outpatient health care centers have been around in different settings for several years. Recommendations were made on how to improve the online appointment system as it relates to timing, and quality of services provided. The results of the Fisher Exact test showed that there were differences in the views of the students and the staff in their responses to two items that measured the services provided by the doctors, and the access to the different services. The general view of the users about the health services provided at the health centre was positive. The findings showed that a majority of those who used the online appointment system were satisfied. A questionnaire with an internal consistency of 0.87 was used to collect data from the participants who gave their consent. The con-venience sampling method was used to select 50 participants (30 students & 20 university staff members), who visited and used the health centre services. To achieve this purpose, a descriptive research design was used to answer three research questions. The purpose of this study was to determine the users’ views of the online appointment system, as well as their views about the services offered at the university health centre. The online appointment system at the university health centre was intro-duced by the University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica management in 2014.
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