Manage Patient Appointment and Journey with Queue Management System

For any healthcare facility, clinic or hospital the most important thing is to manage the patient flow and keep them calm. As generally when patient visit hospitals they are already stressed, anxious, worried and at unrest. It is extremely important that the hospital or the healthcare facility provide them services in a most convenient way possible. This could be a great relief and it also help the hospitals and clinics to improve the patient journey. Regardless of the industry, for any business it is extremely important to maintain a comfortable environment for its customers. The customer happiness and customer satisfaction is a key to success. The satisfied customer are more loyal and it is easier and less expensive to do business with them again. The studies have shown us that it is nine to twelve time more expensive to acquire a new customer comparing to selling to an existing customer.

If a business fails to satisfy its customer, eventually it will lose them. The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very competitive market, the customers here are more aware and conscious about their purchase decisions and they simply have too many options to choose from. One bad experience could repel them from your business and one satisfactory experience could establish a long term relationship with them. That is how important it is to offer a satisfactory customer experience. When it comes to the hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities it is even more important to satisfy your customers and provide them a pleasant waiting experience to ensure a great patient journey.

Here is how a hospital, clinic or any healthcare facility can manage the patient appointments and patient journey with the help of a queue management system:

How a Queue Management System Improves Patient Journey: Reduce Wait Time

A queue management system is a great tool to streamline customer flow and to reduce the patient wait time. The manual patient queues are difficult to manage and there are so many other problems too which deteriorate the customer experience. The manual queue management also put more pressure on the staff and the crowd formation and congestion is a common siting. A digital queue management system can prevent all these problems and it has many other added benefits. One of the most important factor that impacts on the customer journey is the wait time. It is crucial to minimize it. When patient reached to the hospital or any healthcare facility they want to get treated immediately. Everyone is in hurry and in an uncomfortable state of mind, which makes it even more difficult for the staff to manage manual queues. However a digital queue management system can manage patients easily, everything is automatic, the patients can easily be routed to their designated paths, there is no staff involvement so patient often don’t have too many complaints.

There are two types of waiting time, one is the actual waiting time and the other is the perceived wait time. The actual is obviously the actual time that has been passed from the sign-up till getting the service. However, the perceived wait time is the time a customer or patient feels while waiting in the queues. The perceived wait time is always a big problem, if the hospital or healthcare facility failed to offer a better waiting experience the perceived wait time could go higher which only adds to the stress and worriedness of the patients and their attendants. However with some small things the perceived wait time can be reduced a lot. If the hospital or healthcare facility deploy some digital signage with engaging content or relevant information running on them the patient could be engaged in to it. If there are audio announcements and complete queuing updates on the signage displays, that will further increase the patient engagement and reduce the effects of perceived wait time. This way the patient journey can be improved.

Read More: Queue & Waiting Time Management

How a Queue Management System Improves Patient Journey: Offers Online Appointment Booking

These days’ people are more concerned about their safety and health, especially when people are visiting hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and other healthcare facilities they are have more health concerns. For that hospitals and healthcare facilities are deploying modern queue management system which enables the patients to sign-up remotely and book appointment to plan their visit before arriving at the hospital. The integration of the virtual queuing components enables the patients to arrive at the very exact time of their turn hence they don’t have to wait inside the hospital. The patient can be provided with multiple mediums and platform which they can use to sign-up for the queues or to get information and updates. The customer can use their mobile phone applications, online customer portals, website, SMS, email and call or any other medium to sign-up for the queue. Once they are signed-up they will receive an electronic ticket or e-ticket which will be their ticket number for the queue. The queue management system will keep sharing the updates, notifications and alerts to keep the patient up to date. Hence the patient can plan to arrive at the very time when their number will be called.

Another advantage of allowing the online and digital channels is that the customer can sign-up for the queue before leaving from the home or even during their travel to save a lot of waiting time. The patient also get all the real-time updates through the SMS, WhatsApp, Mobile Apps, Customer Portal Dashboard, etc. The customers who are planning their visit for a regular check-up or examination or to collect their reports or any such tasks can utilize the appointment booking system to choose the time, date and even doctor of their choice. The online appointment booking portal provides all the relevant information along with the availability of the doctors or testing facilities, etc. The queue management system collects the statistical data which can be provided to the patients as well to let them plan their visit. For example, if the Wednesday of last week is busier than the normal, the patient will be informed about it and they can chose any other day to ensure they don’t have to wait much and so on.

How a Queue Management System Improves Patient Journey: Improves Patient Engagements

The queue management system also improves patient engagements and let the staff communicate in a better way. If the patient book an online appointment and in case there is any change in the plan for example, the doctor the patient is intended to meet is unavailable or on an emergency duty then the hospital can notify the patient and also suggest them with alternates or let them reschedule their appointment. If the customer chose a remote sign-up method and they still haven’t arrived, and any unexpected situation occurred, the staff can immediately notify the patient for the delay, or the queue management system can also be configured to automatically respond and update the patients to notify them in-time. The WhatsApp is the most popular communication/messaging application in the entire UAE. The WhatsApp queuing enables the patient and the staff to communicate with each other. If the patient have any concerns they can also text to the staff and ask them about it. For example, the patient is coming to collect a test report, they got stuck in the traffic and they are sure they won’t be able to reach in time by their turn. In such scenarios they can request the staff to take adjust their queue accordingly.

The appointment booking and queue management system also provide great business intelligence to the businesses as well. The hospital or any healthcare facility staff got the information and trend reports on their dashboard which help them manage the appointments and queues accordingly. This prevent any delay during the patient journey and help them improving the patient experience. The communication, live updates and other information increase patient engagements. The queue management system also display engaging content on the digital signage screens along with the live queuing updates. Which increase patient engagements and improve their waiting experience. It also help reducing the effects of the perceived wait time and improve the overall patient journey.

How a Queue Management System Improves Patient Journey: Personalized Patient Experience

The patient data is already stored in the central information center or main database of the hospital or any healthcare facility. The queue management system have a great feature which enables it to integrate with third-party tools and other databases and it can linked to the central information center as well. The data can flow in both direction, hence the data from other systems can be provided to the queue management system and its data can be provided to the other systems as well. The queue management system can identify the patient during their sign-up process or if a customer had made an appointment via online or any other digital channel such as the mobile app or WhatsApp or even SMS the system can still identify the patients. This enables the staff and the management to extract the required information form the database beforehand which is required to provide a personalized patient experience. The personalized patient experience makes it easier for the patients to interact with the healthcare facility and it also increase their happiness. The staff can also utilize this data to expedite the service delivery process and the data can also be used to automate several tasks which reduce waiting time and service delivery time and enables a single service staff to serve to more patient in a single shift. Hospitals and healthcare facilities can easily optimize their performance and operational efficiency with the use of a digital queue management system which also improves patient journey and increase their loyalty.

How a Queue Management System Improves Patient Journey: Collect Patient Feedback and Business Intelligence Data

The patient feedback is very important, it not only provides you a comprehensive detail of the entire patient journey but it also help identifying the areas of improvement. The patient feedback collection also have a very positive impact on the relationship between the patient and the healthcare facility. When your patient knows that you want to learn about their experience and you are interested in rectifying the problems they are facing during their patient journey, the patient feel more connected and they trust more on the brand. This increases their loyalty and trust on the brand. That is why the patient feedback is also very important. With the help of a modern queue management system the hospitals, clinics, and all other healthcare businesses can collect the patient feedback from multiple channels. For example if the patient used the online portal the email and the online patient dashboard can be used, if the patient used WhatsApp then the same can be used for the feedback collection and so on. Moreover different patient feedback surveys can be pushed through different channels to maximize the response rate and to improve the data quality of the patient feedback.

The queue management system are also very capable in collecting the statistical data and other valuable information which can be very helpful in identifying the flaws and areas of improvement in the entire operation. The queue management systems can also monitor and measure various KPIs (key performance indicator) for the employee to evaluate the staff performance. The queue management system can collect the precise data about the number of patient being served on a particular day or during a particular time period, and they can also provide information about the most availed services or most popular laboratory tests or even most popular doctors and so on. The system monitor each and everything and then analyze the statistical data as per the in-built algorithms and compile it in an actionable reporting format with flexibility to customize these reports as per the needs of the management. This provides a deep insight to the entire operation and provide all the required details to make informed decisions. The management can also setup new policies and strategies for the future on the bases of the business intelligence and then they can also quantify the impact of their policies and strategies with the help of the business intelligence data. These features significantly improve the decision making which results in satisfactory patient experience and excellent patient journey.

Conclusion

A queue management system is a necessity for the modern day queuing needs. The Dubai and in fact all around the UAE the customers in general demands very high standards and excellent quality services. The businesses and healthcare sector is investing huge amount in digital transformation. The patient experience and patient journey is very important for any healthcare business. A queue management system is very helpful for hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, testing facilities and other healthcare establishment. It provide them a chance to better understand the ongoing trends, their patients’ behavior, needs and desires. Hence the management can build new strategies and setup new policies to enhance the patient experience and patient journey. In general when a patient arrived at any healthcare facility or hospital they are already stressed, worried and sometime they could be in a very unpleasant state. That is why it extremely important that the management ensures a smoother and quicker patient journey with a satisfactory experience. RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE, if you need any help with your queuing needs or want to learn more about the subject? Feel free to reach us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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