"We've had Speed SMS
implemented for over a year. We use Speedminer
to send out 2 types of SMS, Appointment Reminder
as well as Next in Queue.
Before implementing the Appointment
Reminder, the doctors used to always complain
that many patients either never turned up for
their appointments or were late - wasting the
clinics' timeslot. Our study showed that the
main reason for this was that the patient forgot
about their appointments even with the patient
appointment card system. We were looking at
various options to resolve the problem and even
considered hiring staff to call patients before
the appointment. But we realised there would
be the problem of high cost in staffing as well
as the calls themselves; and quite often the
patients are not available to answer the phone.
We finally chose the SMS solution provided by
Speedminer which integrated into our Hospital
Information Systems to automatically send out
SMS reminder to patients 48 hours prior of their
appointment. I can still remember when we first
started this service, many patients came to
us and told us that they loved it. Besides that,
we also noticed almost no patients have missed
their appointments and most of the patients
also came on time for their appointments.
Encouraged by the results,
we quickly started the second SMS service -
Next in Queue. Whenever patients came early
to the clinic and the doctor was unable to attend
to them immediately, we can now ask the patient
to go for a cup of tea, or go to the bank nearby,
or anything else instead of waiting at the clinic.
When it is close to the turn for the patient
to see the doctor, the nurse can just click
to their patient record, and from the template
to send out an SMS to alert the patient to come
to the clinic. Our patients comment highly on
this value added service; they feel like we
are in touch with them even they are outside
of our hospital building.
Speedminer truly helps
us to bring up the image of our hospital and
with the benefits reaped; we have gained the
return on our investment within a short period
of time.
-- Puan Haslina Hj.
Zainuddin, Senior Manager (General Support &
BSC)
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