The first contact that a medical facility often has with a patient is through the scheduling of an appointment. The patient can call up the facility or send an email requesting a time slot with a physician for a consultation or a procedure. He or she can make this request as far ahead of time as desired.
When the patient shows up at the clinic or the hospital, the receptionist or one of the nurses interview the patient for some demographic information. If this is not the patient’s first visit to the facility, then the staff attending the patient will have to take the time to pull out existing medical records from a file. Only after the necessary information is taken from the patient does the patient get to go through the consultation or the procedure.
The process of scheduling and admitting a patient can be tedious and time-consuming. This especially applies if the operating system used by the medical facility is paper-based. A paper-based system, coupled by understaffing in certain cases, the scheduling and admitting procedure can waste a lot of time, both on the part of the patient and the medical staff. It also cuts back on the facility’s productivity.
Making the process of scheduling and admitting patients more efficient and leading to more productivity is one of the areas of concern to which Braintree provides solutions. The BTScheduler, in particular, is a medical workflow software application in Braintree’s product line that can streamline and shorten this process.
The BTScheduler works just like any electronic calendar tool or application. With a simple click-and-type process, medical facilities can book appointments with their patients with the BTScheduler. These appointment slots on the calendar can also be linked with the patient’s electronic medical records.
However, unlike most electronic calendars, the BTScheduler goes beyond simply recording appointments booked with the medical facility. What makes the BTScheduler special is that it can support multi-doctor and multi-hospital appointments to schedule patients. It also supports daily, weekly and monthly views. The BTScheduler can also be integrated into worklists.
Easier coordination is the main benefit that the BTScheduler can give to medical facilities. When easier coordination on appointments among various doctors and various medical facilities is in place, it cuts down on the time spent in waiting on the part of patients, and in transmitting electronic medical records and other data such as PACS to whomever are meant to receive them. All in all, the BTScheduler is a medical workflow software application that makes the process of scheduling and admitting more efficient and leading to more productivity.