Questionnaire survey about use of an online appointment booking system in one large tertiary public hospital outpatient service center in China

Abstract

BackgroundAs a part of nationwide healthcare reforms, the Chinese government launched web-based appointment systems (WAS) to provide a solution to problems around outpatient appointments and services. These have been in place in all Chinese public tertiary hospitals since 2009.MethodsQuestionnaires were collected from both patients and doctors in one large tertiary public hospital in Shanghai, China.Data were analyzed to measure their satisfaction and views about the WAS.ResultsThe 1000 outpatients randomly selected for the survey were least satisfied about the waiting time to see a doctor. Even though the WAS provided a much more convenient booking method, only 17% of patients used it. Of the 197 doctors surveyed, over 90% thought it was necessary to provide alternative forms of appointment booking systems for outpatients. However, about 80% of those doctors who were not associated professors would like to provide an ‘on-the-spot’ appointment option, which would lead to longer waits for patients.ConclusionsPatients were least satisfied about the waiting times. To effectively reduce appointment-waiting times is therefore an urgent issue. Despite the benefits of using the WAS, most patients still registered via the usual method of queuing, suggesting that hospitals and health service providers should promote and encourage the use of the WAS. Furthermore, Chinese health providers need to help doctors to take others’ opinions or feedback into consideration when treating patients to minimize the gap between patients’ and doctors’ opinions. These findings may provide useful information for both practitioners and regulators, and improve recognition of this efficient and useful booking system, which may have far-reaching and positive implications for China’s ongoing reforms.

Using diffusion of innovation theory to understand the factors impacting patient acceptance and use of consumer e-health innovations: a case study in a primary care clinic

“…With the prevalence of EAS in the health care sector, studies on patient acceptance and usage of EAS services have been conducted [ 31 , 32 ]. Cao et al [31] conducted a qualitative study to examine patient usage of a web-based appointment system implemented in a Chinese public tertiary hospital [ 31 ].…”

Evaluation of Patients' Satisfaction on Booking Appointment System in Dental School of Isfahan During 2018

“…Based on the study of Zhang et al, about patients' experience of web based appointment system using online appointment websites in a hospital in China, the most tolerable waiting time for visiting the doctor was 30 minutes. (10) This time was about 10-20 minutes in our study. Additionally, in Zhang's research, satisfaction with the waiting time (P=0.01) was signi cantly different among native, nonnative and passenger patients.…”

Assessing the Online Outpatient Booking System

“…Also in one study by Finkelstein et al, entitled "Priorities of appointment reminder systems and patient", the use of this facility was reported in 2.66% of all systems studied in Colombia (33), although in a study from Norway, 45.45% of hospital appointment systems were able to recall the appointment (34), which is not consistent with the current study. The reviewed studies revealed that post-appointment recall probability significantly contributed to the system flexibility, time management (15), reduction in the number of missed appointments (14,15,24,25,33,34) and costs (33,34).…”

“…This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited time and any place, allowing the user to see the physicians' appointments (9), selection of the desired option, editing the recorded information, more favorable relationship between physician and patient, improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of care (5), cost reduction (11)(12)(13)(14), reduction of the number and volume of employees (7), saving patient information for use in subsequent appointments (11), and reduction of the number of missed appointments (9,11,(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). However, despite the importance of this system, a few studies have been done on its evaluation and existing researches in this field have investigated topics, such as designing a web-based appointment system (19), patient satisfaction of online appointment booking systems (4,20), development of information technology acceptance model for an online appointment booking system in hospitals (21)(22)(23), implementation and use of the online appointment booking system in clinics (15,20), and improving the management of appointments (24,25). There are limited studies in Iran on the need for smart systems to prepare an optimized program for patients and investigating the appointment-making system of private physicians' offices (5,22).…”