Usually, in hospitals, the management has to face certain issues such as urgency, lack of data inputs, a huge number of patients and unsatisfied visitors/patients. The main issue is always with the limited resources the management have and sometimes the limited space also. Another common problem with queue management systems at hospitals is that there are certain patients who may arrive later but should be treated earlier, managing such scenarios is always difficult with ordinary queuing solutions. Apart from that usually hospital management always complaint about lack of data input or insufficient data, which also makes it more complex to make decisions regarding customer experience and customer happiness. A queue management system for hospital must resolve all such problem to improve patient journey and experience along with collecting enough data which help the management to take decisions in further improving customer satisfaction.
Here are the 3 dimensions of a queue management system for hospitals:
Queue Management System for Hospitals
The queue management system for hospitals should be operating on linear queuing majorly with an exception for the patients need urgent care or emergency treatment. All types of emergency and regular scenarios should be classified and identified in the queuing system’s agent portal clearly. Whenever a patient arrives at the hospital they the first responding staff or the counter agent should be able to assess the treatment requirements to issue appropriate token which leads the patient through the required route to get the treatment with least wait time. Linear queuing is also the best approach for the hospitals and can help effectively handling large customer flow.
All types of treatments, checkups, examinations, etc should be managed through the system with different routes, as for all of such patient the treatment is different and requires different types of staff to attend them. This will not only reduce the wait time and the overall service delivery time but it also allows the management to effectively manage high-priority queues for examples, people with emergency situations or who need immediate attention. Another important feature is to provide full and flexible control over the queue and the agent should be able to hold someone’s turn to prioritize newly arrived patient with some emergency situation.
Data Input and Data Collection Process
No matter what type of single or hybrid queuing mechanisms are being used, it is extremely important to make the data entry process simple and quick. Usually, when people visit hospitals they are in a situation of unrest and hurry. Everyone wants to get treated as quickly as possible. No one likes to stay on counters/receptions for long to fill in the forms, or for data entry, etc. The queue management system should be able to integrate with the existing ERPs or any other system that is running there.
When a patient or visitor reach to a counter, the system should be able to get their details from the Emirates ID Card or Insurance Card to save time, all the data should be linked to a centralized information centre to immediately identify the patient. This also helps the system to propagate relevant information to the relevant departments to avoid any delay in repeated data entry at any other department or area when the patient visits there. The queue management system should be able to collect data of the patients along with the relevant visit details which should be linked to the digital patient history, in short, a single sign-in should allow the staff and doctors to get all the relevant information they need, without repeated signing-in on different departments or phases.
Read also: How to reduce patient wait time in hospitals with virtual queuing?
Customer Happiness Meter
A customer happiness meter is a very useful tool for a queue management system for hospitals. The customer happiness meter should be linked with the queue details and shouldn’t require any input from the customer/patient to give their feedback. The system should be able to automatically link the happiness meter data with the queue management system data to identify which patient gave the feedback. Such indicators are very helpful in identifying the issues with the system and the process itself. Staff efficiency and behaviour can also be monitored through such indicators.
The happiness meter data should be organized and presented in comprehensive and short reports along with other user data and stats. The happiness meter stats will help management to understand the efficiency of the overall staff and the service delivery process with deep insight and a better understanding of the issues. Later the staff or the customer care department can contact the patients/customers with negative feedback to further assess the cause of their negative feedback. These steps could be very helpful for the management to take decisions to improve their service delivery process.
Read also: Queue System for Medeor Hospital Dubai
Conclusion
The queue management system for hospitals is not an ordinary queuing system. The overall dynamics of customer flow is totally different than any other industry. In hospitals, the patients are usually in some kind of problem and they are not fully calm. So, they don’t behave naturally, everyone wants to get treated as early as possible. As per researches, the waiting time in hospitals felt even more due to the environment, stress and other factors. Apart from that, there are certain patients who might come later but they require treatment earlier, so the queue management system should be able to handle such situations as well. Another big problem is with the sign-up process, which usually requires some time and the visitors/patients also feel uncomfortable during that time. So, the queue management system should be able to link with the central data centre to be able to pull up all the relevant records and history for the patient by only a single sign-in such as Emirates ID or Insurance Card, etc. This could save a lot of time. The queue management system for hospitals should also collect customer feedback on multiple stages of service delivery, which can later be utilized to take vital decisions for improving the customer journey and customer experience.
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