If your administrative staff spends hours scheduling appointments every day, you’re probably looking for a way to manage appointments more effectively. If you are, it’s reasonable to ask how the world’s top clinics go about solving this problem.
The Cleveland Clinic, one of the biggest and most reputable US medical centers, streamlines appointment scheduling and provides a better patient experience through their MyChart app. In addition to scheduling appointments, patients can use this app to view their full history of appointments, check test results and outpatient progress notes, and chat with a doctor.
Another high-ranking US medical center, the Mayo Clinic, also finds it efficient to manage everything from doctor appointments to medical bills in their app. These are just two examples, but there are many more!
If you’re looking to develop a doctor appointment app, you’re in the right place. Today, we’ll talk about the benefits of this type of app, features to include, the cost of development, and success stories.
Reasons to develop a doctor appointment booking app for your medical center
Why do medical centers automate appointment scheduling? The reasons are numerous. Doctor appointment app development is a win-win solution for clinics and patients.
With an appointment scheduling app, clinics are able to:
- Improve their efficiency and streamline processes
- Better manage staff scheduling
- Predict and reduce appointment no-shows
- Save time on administrative tasks
- Avoid overbooking
- Eliminate human errors (for example, misspelling a name or mistyping an appointment time)
- Get insights into their performance (number of completed appointments and no-shows, full appointment history by patient) and compare their productivity
Patients are able to:
- Access healthcare 24/7
- Schedule and reschedule appointments any time from anywhere
- Communicate with their care team in real time
- Access and pay bills (if payment functionality is offered)
Features to include in your doctor appointment app
Although certain features are only apt for particular applications, some core features can be found in almost any doctor appointment app.
| FEATURE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| Doctor profiles | Patients should be able to browse doctor profiles to choose the doctor they like. Profiles should contain information on certifications, experience, competencies, and languages spoken. It will be useful if you include ratings and feedback from previous and current patients so users can know whether a doctor met the expectations of past patients in terms of communication, treatment, competence, etc. |
| Search for a doctor | Let patients search for healthcare providers by specialty, ratings, experience, and location. |
| Book and manage appointments | Patients should be able to schedule an appointment with a doctor using a calendar. Also, make sure users can cancel and reschedule appointments. |
| Reminders | Push notifications work well for automating regular interactions between patients and clinics, such as reminding patients about appointments. You may consider notifying patients a few times so they don’t forget about an upcoming appointment, but be careful not to overdo it. |
Doctor appointment app features you may find useful or want to include later:
- Payments ― Allow users to access and pay their bills.
- Online consultations ― Let users access their doctors through video or chat without going to the clinic.
- Cloud-based e-records ― Allow patients to view test results, exams, radiology images, and prescriptions.
- Medication tracker ― Offer reminders for patients to take medications and refill prescriptions.
- Health tips and insights ― Regularly share useful guides to healthy living and advice on illnesses.
Examples of doctor appointment apps
To get a better understanding of what doctor scheduling apps look like and what features they include, let’s check out real-world examples.
Mayo Clinic
The Mayo Clinic is a medical center that has provided medical services to patients with serious and complex illnesses for more than a century. The Mayo Clinic has major campuses in three states ― Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida ― and dozens of locations across five states. To streamline their healthcare operations, better manage staff, and engage patients, the Mayo Clinic developed an app.
With the Mayo Clinic app, patients can:
- Book doctor appointments
- View their appointment schedule
- Get health recipes, fitness videos, and health tips and insights
- Access test results, exams, and radiology images
- Pay for visits to the clinic
- Add health data from Mayo Clinic to the iPhone Health app
- Communicate with their healthcare team
Health Buddy
The Health Buddy app was developed by SingHealth and is intended to work for a number of Singaporean health institutions including Singapore General Hospitals, SingHealth Polyclinics, Singapore National Eye Centre, National Heart Centre Singapore, National Dental Centre Singapore, National Cancer Centre Singapore, KK Women’s & Children’s Hospital, Sengkang General Hospital, and Changi General Hospital.
With Health Buddy, patients can:
- Make, reschedule, and cancel appointments
- Check real-time wait times
- Pay bills
- Order medicine
- Get wellness tips and videos
- Find a general practitioner nearby
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