Reduce waiting time for medical examination, why not make an appointment online?

Patients line up to get medicine at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: THU HIEN

The article " Health insurance examination: Queuing from early morning, still not your turn by noon" on Tuoi Tre Online attracted much attention from readers.

Many readers believe that with the current overload situation at hospitals, especially end-line hospitals, people can register for medical examination and treatment appointments online to reduce waiting time.

Despite encouragement, less than 14% of patients register for online medical examination

According to Tuoi Tre Online , most hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City have implemented online registration or calling the hotline to schedule medical examinations to reduce the load and shorten waiting time for patients.

Including end-line hospitals such as: Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital, Gia Dinh People's Hospital, People's Hospital 115, Orthopedic Trauma Hospital...

To make people aware of the online medical examination registration form, hospitals have deployed approaches to patients in many different ways such as: information on the website, pasting QR codes on prescriptions, hanging instruction boards in front of the medical examination area...

At Gia Dinh People's Hospital, in addition to posting information on the website for easy access by the public, each patient's prescription has a QR code to install an online appointment scheduling app.

Next to this code is the full information: "Please take 1 minute to scan the QR code to make an appointment and choose a doctor to reduce waiting time".

However, many hospitals say that currently not many people have the habit of choosing to register for medical examination online, the rate of patients registering for examination is still quite low.

Dr. Vo Hong Minh Phuoc - Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital - said that one of the measures the hospital has implemented to reduce waiting time for patients is to increase the application of information technology.

Specifically, patients are encouraged to use the app/website to make an appointment. In the near future, the hospital is expected to increase the forms of payment for hospital fees, health insurance or receiving test results and images online to avoid patients having to wait for results.

In addition, the hospital has also organized patient flow and appointment scheduling by applying a smart appointment scheduling system. Priority is given to individual examinations for the following groups: the elderly, seriously ill patients, children...

At the Eye Hospital (HCMC), according to statistics, the number of patients registering for online examinations only accounts for about 13.7%, although the hospital has actively encouraged people to do so.

The Orthopedic Trauma Hospital (HCMC) encourages people to register for online examination to reduce waiting time when coming to the hospital for examination - Photo: Provided by the hospital

What is the cause?

Speaking to Tuoi Tre Online , Dr. Le Anh Tuan - Head of the General Planning Department of People's Hospital 115 - said that every day the hospital receives about 1,000 - 1,200 health insurance examinations, but only about 200 - 240 register for online examinations (accounting for about 20%).

According to Dr. Tuan, the hospital has implemented online medical examination registration for many years, through two channels: hotline number and medpro application (application for making medical examination appointments at many hospitals across the country).

However, the number of people registering for health insurance online is still low. Currently, most patients come to the hospital and then register for health insurance. This is one of the reasons why patients have to wait a long time for health insurance examination.

"People still have the habit of going to the hospital and then registering for a medical examination. To be proactive and shorten waiting time, people should register for an examination online," said Dr. Tuan.

According to Dr. Tuan, although People's Hospital 115 is a final-level hospital, receiving many patients with health insurance, thanks to improved procedures, examination time has been shortened.

Most patients will complete the examination and medication in the morning, very few cases will last until the afternoon (except in cases where other requirements such as those related to social insurance are required).

An expert in the field of hospital management said that there are many reasons why the rate of people registering for online medical examination is still low.

On the patient side, due to geographical location, age, and psychological characteristics, since the majority of patients come to Ho Chi Minh City from the provinces, many patients who come for examination are mainly middle-aged and elderly.

Therefore, most patients have little access to technology, mainly using social networking platforms for normal communication.

For the elderly, when going to the doctor, they ask their children to register for them, but if their children do not go with them, they will have difficulty directly going to the medical facility to use the technology.

There are also other reasons such as fear of "paying fees" online and being "fraudulent". If registering via the switchboard, the patient must pay a telecommunications fee of 1,000 VND/minute and the fee starts when the phone rings...

On the side of medical facilities, there are not enough technology-savvy personnel to meet the needs of supporting patients in using registration software, handling system errors, etc.

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DONATION - XUAN MAI

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/giam-thoi-gian-cho-kham-benh-sao-khong-dat-lich-kham-truc-tuyen-202505141549526.htm