The end of the waiting room
Status Quo
Not until Corona the waiting-room of a doctor is a very inappropriate location for sick persons. Whereas it becomes more common to book an appointment online, it is still practice to wait local as consequence of emergency cases. United-Pages can not prevent that an appointment is delayed, but you don't have to waste your time in a waiting room.
UNITED-PAGES
Using UNITED-PAGES for forwarding time delay has several advantages: Patients/customers can use a single APPLICATION/App (eg. UnitedPager) for an overview of all appointments. Not only regarding different medical appointments, but also for public authorities, postal services or railway traffic. On the other hand the DEVELOPER of Scheduling-Software can spare the effort of implementation a proprietary App. A comparatively easy integration of the UNITED-PAGES-API is sufficient.
Any personal medical data is sensitive. The API enables the protection of some or any data-field of a cal-UNIT. Only the patient will be read-authorized and only the Scheduling-Manager is write-authorized.
Doctor: Scheduling-Manager sends confirmation email
After fixing an appointment for a patient the Scheduling-Manager puts a new Calendar-UNIT that contains relevant information for the patient and sends an confirmation via Email that additionally contains a URL/link on that UNIT
Patient: add appointment to APP-Calendar
When the patient selects the URL/link it is automatically added to an APP (here: UnitedPager) that was registered for that kind of URL’s
Doctor: Scheduling-Manager updates start time
On the day of treatment the Scheduling-Manager updates the ‘estimated-date’ field of the Calendar-UNIT periodically in case of calculated deferrals
Patient: APP keeps up-to-date
The patient keeps informed via the APP and deceides to start later or spend the time delay for a coffee in a restaurant. Finally he will appear just-in-time.
Patient: APP supports alternatives
If the patient cannot keep an appointment - either because something personally has come up or a delay causes a collision with another appointment - the dispatcher has to be informed.
Typically the alternatives cannot be automated but have to be discussed with the dispatcher who can be contacted via the APP.
Either the appointment has to be delayed, canceled or re-scheduled. May be the dispatcher can offer a video-conference with the doctor.
The contact data of the dispatcher and the link to the video-conference can be stored in other UNITs that can be linked from the calendar-UNIT.
Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS) is a component of the REST application architecture that distinguishes it from other network application architectures.