Description
Improving health care systems, while containing cost pressures, is a key challenge in most countries. One serious problem for healthcare providers is patient non-attendance at scheduled medical appointments that are not cancelled beforehand, which have multiple negative effects, including delayed care, poor staff utilization, loss of revenue and lower patient satisfaction. No-show visits account for 15-20% of all visits in Estonia and up to 21-34% in US. Booking systems play a crucial role in affecting the rate of no-show visits. The objective of this project is to develop a mobile marketing platform for online patient appointment scheduling systems, named “m-health”. M-health is targeted to patients, public and private hospitals and family doctors as a free service, which allows patients to find a nearby doctor, to see their real-time availability, and instantly book an appointment and pay for an appointment. Primary market for the m-health platform is Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
Summary of project results
This Project was needed to reduce patients’ non-attendances at scheduled medical appointments. The results are sustained through a universal platform to organize visits between interested parties also beyond the project theme. The objective of the project was to develop a mobile marketing platform for online patient appointment scheduling systems, named “m-health”. M-health is targeted to patients, public and private hospitals and family doctors as a service, which allows patients to find a nearby doctor, to see their real-time availability, and instantly book an appointment and pay for an appointment. Conducted activities support the initial targets and planned results and the booking-system together with planned extras has been developed; hence the objective and planned outcome are considered as reached. Project promoter has delivered a report with the overview of the solution and steps to integrate with the last hospitals to ensure interfacing with all planned databases. Donor partnership has proven to be fruitful and has had a positive impact on the business relations within the consortium that is likely to be further developed in future.
Summary of bilateral results
Heydays AS was the donor partner in the Project. This Norwegian design agency mainly acted as the front-end developer in the project and contributed with visual interface developments, also with design processes for M-health website, mobile version and tablet versions. Partner also participated in developing logo and basic visual materials of the solution; hence the partner’s contribution to the project outcome and outputs is considered fulfilled. Partnership has also supported the international cooperation experience and has strengthened partner’s vision in developing ambitious projects such as „m-health“, in the future. Also, the project has promoted the dissemination of knowledge and experience that is to be further elaborated in the future.