Development of a Multi-platform Outpatient Appointment System with Automated Interactive SMS Service

Abstract

The accessibility to healthcare services is of utmost importance in any country. However, faced with increasing cost, limited capacity and expanding demand, outpatients face main dissatisfaction in terms of access and waiting times. In an attempt to solve this, appointment systems were developed to allow patients communicate and book an appointment with their health care providers at any time. While these medical appointment systems reduce waiting and access times, they do not offer full flexibility in terms of ways of booking an appointment. These systems tend to only cater millennials (born 1981-1996) and Gen X (born 1965-1980) who are adept in tech devices. Older patients (Baby Boomers, born 1946-1964) are left doing walk-in appointments. The researcher developed a cross-platform outpatient appointment system with automated interactive SMS service. This project aims to address the limitations of existing appointment systems. This project provides a multi-platform means for booking an appointment. The system allows outpatients to book their medical appointments using a web browser, mobile app or through SMS. To accomplish the project, the researcher started with identifying the functional and non-functional requirements of the system. From these requirements, the researcher was able to identify the system’s four modules: the administrator, secretary, doctor and patient. The researcher used different design tools to create the logical and physical design of the system. The design served as a blueprint to develop the system. The system was developed using different web and communication technologies and frameworks such as Laravel, VueJS and Twilio. Tests were done to make sure the system’s completeness. The system was deployed in a web server. Minimum hardware and software requirements were identified. Installation and user manuals were also created to provide thorough guide in using the system.