WO2014179861A1

WO2014179861A1 - System and method for managing scheduled and unscheduled resources, and appointments for establishments.

Info

Publication number: WO2014179861A1
Application number: PCT/CA2014/000399
Authority: WO
Inventors: Benoit Brunel; François REMILLARD; Annie Blanchette; Jacinthe LANDRY; Geneviève DESROSIERS
Original assignee: Benoit Brunel; Remillard François; Annie Blanchette; Landry Jacinthe; Desrosiers Geneviève
Priority date: 2013-05-09
Filing date: 2014-05-09
Publication date: 2014-11-13
Also published as: CA2911977A1

Abstract

System and methods to build and use a medical appointment scheduling and/or agenda system are disclosed. The system allows patients to automatically request medical appointments, taking into account their specific demands and the availability of their selected healthcare professionals. The system is configured to be used over a communication network such as the Internet to allow a patient to be notified by phone or electronically (email and/or SMS) of the appointment's scheduling.

Description

Title of the Invention

System and method for managing scheduled and unscheduled resources, and appointments for establishments.

Cross-Reference to Related Applications

[001 ] The present patent application claims the benefits of priority of United States Provisional Patent Application No. 61/821 ,304, entitled "System and methods for managing medical clinics and/or resources, appointment schedules with scheduled and arrivals of unscheduled patients" and filed at the United States Patents and Trademarks Office on May 9, 2014, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.

Field of the Invention

[002] The present invention generally relates to the field of systems and/or methods for managing appointment schedules and/or resources. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and/or methods for managing appointment schedules for professional services where management of appointment and/or schedules is required, such as for medical and healthcare services, psychological and counselling services, vehicles repair service, etc.

Background of the invention

[003] Currently, patients or any clients requiring an appointment or a consultation with a professional may have to wait a very long period of time, typically several weeks and/or months. In a typical scenario, each patient/client must call an establishment providing the professional in order to set up an appointment and/or must present himself to the establishment without any guarantee of obtaining an appointment with or consulting the desired professional. In such a scenario, the establishment staff will typically try to schedule another appointment which corresponds to both the professional and client or patient while respecting the urgency of the situation.

[004] In the event where a client urgently requires to consult a specific professional which is typically aware of the client file or patient's record, the client or patient shall present himself to an establishment, such as a medical clinic, an emergency room or other similar establishment and wait in line for another professional to be available for a consultation.

[005] In the area of medical services, in terms of the continuum of care and access to the first line of services, one or more health care professional wishing to offer effective alternatives and automated access to consultation periods is completely bereft of solutions. To this day, the practice advanced access mode is not supported in any way by management tools for consultations, attendance, and waiting room.

[006] Currently, the process to determine the priority of patients' treatments is based on the severity of the condition of the patients is applicable only if the patient is present at the clinic or is using a special medical telephone support service.

[007] There is thus a need for systems and methods which would take into account the requests and needs of the clients or patients in relation to the availability of their selected professional(s). Typically, a client or patient may not consult or meet the right and/or desired professional within a specific region or area. The current process in place in health care establishments allows some less urgent cases to be treated before some more urgent ones leading into a situation where expensive facilities, such as hospital emergencies, are visited by patients that would have been more efficiently served within a less expensive patient care facility, such as medical walk-in clinic or any other type of less expensive facilities.

Summary of the Invention

[008] The present invention covers systems, methods and/or processes for allocating consultation or rendezvous with or without appointment in a practice mode and optionally allowing sorting of the urgency of the request for consultation level called "advanced access", more specifically allowing a client to select a professional using different technologies to automate such processes/methods.

[009] In the current situation, the clients or patients are left to themselves in the decision process of which facility to use or consult in relation to their professional needs. The current invention typically initiates an automated process to offer a client or patient possibility mean to schedule an appointment within the best possible timeframe while taking into account many variables, such as the level of urgency, the availability of one or more professional, such as a family doctor, the other availabilities of other facilities, the travel distance between a client/patient and the available facility, the cost effectiveness, the overall demand for a specific day or time period, etc. [0010] One skilled in the art shall understand that even if the present disclosure presents examples related to the area of medical clinics and healthcare services, the present invention also applies to any other type of professional services or businesses requiring the management and allocation of scheduled or unscheduled appointments and/or resources. Also, the term "patient" is used interchangeably with the term "client" and means a user of the system which requires an appointment with a professional or a business in order to obtain services. Furthermore, the terms "patient" or "client" may refer to the patient himself or to a device, such as a phone, a computer device, a tablet or any other mean of communication.

[001 1 ] Another aspect of the present invention allows the profiling and the management of specific professional data management system in real time. Each professional may set their own objectives, such as the maximum number of regular clients or patients to be treated or served per day, the number of other clients/patients to be treated, etc. The current invention is configured to adapt with the practice of medical professionals working in Advance Access scheduling.

[0012] Another aspect of the present invention is to provide an automated system to manage appointments which shall interact with one or more data management or application systems in order to provide a multitude of appointment proposals time based on user input.

[0013] Another aspect of the present invention allows a client/patient to request an appointment and to obtain a response from a system comprising different available time periods based on multiple criteria and decision-making processes such as, the identification of the client and related medical record or profile, the client answers to criteria questions, the availabilities of one or more professional and/or treating physicians, the availabilities of other professionals in the one or more regions or areas, the constraints of the professionals - such as the maximum daily clients to be served or treated, the specific expertise needed for the client's needs, the level of urgency, the overall demand for one or more types of appointments within one or more specific time ranges, the cost effectiveness (who can serve adequately with the lowest cost). In the medical field, this concept is named a "new medical agenda".

[0014] Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a system which may be tailored for each type of professionals using several specific factors, such as the starting and end working time per specific day, the number of regular clients/patients to be served or treated per day, the clients/patients having specific needs, cases and/or issues, the range of ages of the clients/patients, the patients treated in regular time with other doctors, etc.). The professional may also define a suitable number of clients/patients to be served or treated per specific day and the maximum number of clients/patients the professional to be served can treat within a specific time period, such as a day. This option allows the maximization of the planned working days.

[0015] Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a management module to collect the professional's schedules, professional services, availability and the history of the duration of the appointments. The management module is integrated with one or more data sources configured to store appointment information.

[0016] The system in accordance with the principles of the present invention, which is adapted to automatically manage the appointments schedule, comprises:

• a communication network;

• at least one application server;

• at least one web server configured to communicate with at least one application server over the communication network;

• at least one client device configured to communicate with at least one application server over the communication network;

• at least one data source configured to store scheduling appointment information.

[0017] The automated system for managing appointments comprises:

• a multimedia appointment managing system where the patient can interact using any communication method, such as by phone, via a web-based interface, by email, by SMS, etc.

• a complete automation of appointment management processes (create a new appointment schedule and update appointment) without any human interaction;

• a decision-making process regarding professional intervention and appointments schedule for individual client/patient profile and input;

• automated professional agenda update.

Brief description of the Drawings

[0018] The features and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following description, reference being made to the accompanying drawings in which: [0019] Figure 1 is a system diagram illustrating a system where for managing of appointments with schedules and arrivals of impromptu patients is performed within the medical field.

[0020] Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of the operation of the appointment shift process.

[0021] Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating another example of the operation of the appointment shift process.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

[0022] Novel system and method for managing scheduled and unscheduled resources, and appointments for establishments will be described hereinafter. Although the invention is described in terms of specific illustrative embodiments, it is to be understood that the embodiments described herein are by way of example only and that the scope of the invention is not intended to be limited thereby.

[0023] The present invention combines the management of the automatic cancellation and assignment of appointments by matching the patient or client priorities and needs with the professional calculated velocity.

[0024] Now referring to Figure 1, a system to manage the appointments and/or the resources of one or more establishment receiving scheduled and unscheduled clients or patients 10 is presented. A client/patient 101 may contact an establishment or any other type of location using any communication method 102, typically using a phone. The system will then initiate an automated scheduling process interacting with the client/patient via phone, web, SMS, etc. Using the communication method, the client/patient may input or specify any information allowing the system to find the professional linked to the client/patient.

[0025] The system analyses a combination of criteria in order to find if the professional is available 103. The criteria are tailored to the specific area of use of the present invention and are selected to allow the matching of the availability of one or more specific professional with the availabilities of the client/patient requesting the appointment. To do so, the system performs a triage process according to different criteria, such as standard and/or current medical protocols, level of urgency and vulnerability of the patient. The level of vulnerability of the client is typically inputted in the system by a professional using a standard code of vulnerability classification. The system analyses the resulting information from the triage process to establish a level of urgency of the request for consultation. Then, the system validates that the one or more specific professional has an available time period according to different parameters, such as the specific days and/or period of time of a day. The system allows for dynamic and automatic management of the professional agendas using different methods, such as the regular conversion of the vacated or freed periods from one or more cancelled appointments into another type of appointment, typically being for consultation services.

[0026] The following example shows how the system may manage the allocation of an appointment to a health care professional. In the present scenario, the patient, Mr. Tremblay, is a 68 year old male and is suffering from different chronic diseases. More specifically, he is diabetic and has a heart condition. He is considered to be vulnerable.

[0027] Dr. Bouchard, a general practitioner, practices four days a week at the clinic located in his neighborhood. The following durations represent factors to be considered by the system:

• Consultations without appointment (Walk-In) : 10 min

• A medical follow-up appointment : 20 min

• Annual medical appointment follow-up : 30 min

[0028] Mr. Tremblay communicates with the clinic using a phone line as his physical condition has been deteriorating during the last 24 hours, having fever and feeling sensations of dizziness. When the communication is established, the system automatically asks the patient to identify himself using any input method, such as entering digit using his phone or using voice recognition systems. To authenticate the patient, the system fetches the record of Mr. Tremblay within a data source containing the clinic patient's records. Each record comprises information about a patient, such as the level of vulnerability.

[0029] Still referring to the present example, the system retrieves the record of Mr. Tremblay which comprises information about his high level of vulnerability. Then, the system assigns the priority or the level of urgency associated with Mr. Tremblay by using assessment protocol and/or process through the analysis of the patient's answers to different questions. In this example, let assume that the system assigns a priority level of 2 to Mr. Tremblay based on the information fetched during the assessment process. In the context of the example, the system will check the following consultation options using the following algorithm order : Is Dr. Bouchard available for consultation - without appointment - in the same day? o If the answer is YES, the system automatically fetches a data source for available time periods of Dr. Bouchard to be assigned to Mr. Tremblay as an appointment;

o If the answer is NO, does Dr. Bouchard is available for a medical follow up of a duration of 30 min within the next day?

^■ If the answer is YES, the system will automatically fetch a data source for available time periods of Dr. Bouchard to be assigned to Mr. Tremblay as an appointment;

^■ If the answer is NO, is Dr. Bouchard available for any type of consultation within the next day?

• If the answer is YES, the system will automatically convert the available time periods already assigned to other tasks, such as one 30 min annual follow up appointment into 3 different 10- minute unscheduled consultation appointments. After the conversion is completed, the system assigns one of the newly converted unscheduled appointments to Mr. Tremblay.

[0030] Now referring to Figure 2, a shifting process 20 in accordance with the present invention is shown. The system monitors the overall consultations scheduling process to detect events allowing the increase of unallocated time periods such as cancellations of assigned appointments or appointments having a faster pace than expected. If the system detects such events, the system is configured to trigger a shifting process in order to dynamically reorganize the appointments to provide earlier appointments to patients. The system automatically reallocates or shifts the appointments in order to optimize the schedule and reduce the waiting time of the patients. The shifting process 20 uses specific parameters, such as the data history of one or more healthcare professional or any other resources data history. Using the newly allocated appointment information, the system automatically communicates with the patient to inform him about the change in the consultation schedule using any communication method, such as a phone call, an email, an SMS or any other mean of communication. The system requests that the patient confirms his presence to the newly allocated appointment and/or that he confirms the cancellation of the original appointment. [0031] The appointment shift process frees one or more appointments time slots assigned to one or more specific days and offers them and/or use them to schedule new appointments to patient unscheduled or already scheduled for an appointment.

[0032] Still referring to Figure 2, the system detects a cancelled appointment 201, such as a 30-minute appointment (type A). The shifting process 20 is triggered by the system which analyses the different requests for appointments of the patients/user and the current scheduled appointments of the healthcare establishment. In the example of the Figure 2, the system determines that the cancelled appointment should be converted into three (3) 10-minute "walk-in" appointments 202. In this example, the shifting process 20 moves up the already allocated appointments after the two first 10-minute converted appointments 202 are allocated. Such shifting process 20 results in a free time slot for a 10-minute appointment 203 which may be allocated to an available patient.

[0033] Now referring to Figure 3, a shifting process 30 triggered after a delay is detected by the system is shown. The shifting process for delay 30 is triggered when the system automatically detects one or more delays within one or more appointments assigned to a specific health care professional or within the professional agenda. The triggered shifting process 30 calculates the velocity of a specific appointment type (such as walk-in appointment or follow-up appointment) and, based on the calculated velocity, determines if actions are required to be taken such as a switch in professional's availabilities, shift, delay or cancel appointments, or any other action can allow system schedule optimization. The system will then proceed to analyze the list of scheduled appointments and the professional availability in order find the one or more potential available time periods. The system may temporarily assign the appointments to the one or more potential available time periods. Then, the system notifies the professional about the potential shift in the agenda or appointment list. The professional is required to agree or disagree with the temporarily assigned appointment in order to confirm the shifting process 30. Upon acceptation of the professional, the system adds the one or more new appointments to their agenda, schedule and/or calendars in order to catch up the delays. The system also provides the option to move appointments assigned to patients from one day to the next availability in 24 hours or 48 hours if the patient may not be seen at the assigned time period.

[0034] Still referring to Figure 3, the system detects that an appointment as a 20-minute delay 301. The system then triggers the shifting process to reschedule the following appointments 302 at a later time also known as moving down the appointment. The shifting process 30 may add new appointments time period to the schedule and/or may delay the following appointments by a predetermined time period, typically 24 or 48 hours. The delay of the following appointments is calculated based on the availabilities of the professional and on the factors relating to the associated patients.

[0035] In the event where an appointment is moved by the shifting process, a request for confirmation is sent to the client/patient. In the event when the request for confirmation is unanswered by the client/patient, the appointment shall not be moved and will remain at the original time period. If the shifting process requires the addition of a new appointment, the system communicates to the professional an approval request prior to assigning the additional appointment slot to the professional as this addition will potentially delay the end of their working period schedule (shift). The communication of the approval request to the professional and of the confirmation request to the client may be realized using any communication method or system. Typically, an alert shall be sent via email, SMS or phone call. In the event where the professional not responding to the approval request, the system cancels the appointment of the client and/or removes the said appointment

[0036] As moving a patient's appointment schedule within a short notice is a complex process, the system uses the scheduling criteria inputted by the client/patient at the time of request of an appointment, such as to the request for a specific professional without regards to availabilities or the request for any available professional.

[0037] The following table presents a further example of the conversion of an appointment from one type to another type

duration Walk-In 2x10 Walk-In Tel Walk-In 2x 10

min App-type min

Walk-In Web

App-type C Confirmation App-type C 30 App-type C App-type C 30 App-type C 30 min call min or Type App-type min or Type 30 min duration Walk-In 3x10 Walk-In Tel Walk-In 3x10

min App-type min

Walk-In Web

App-type D Confirmation App-type D 10 App-type D App-type D 10 App-type D 10 min call min or Type App-type min or Type 10 min duration Walk-In 1x10 Walk-In Tel Walk-In 1 x10

min App-type min

Walk-In Web

App-type N/A App-type App-type N/A N/A

Walk-In 10 Walk-In 10 Walk-In Tel

min duration min App-type

Walk-In Web

[0038] In the example presented within the previous table, the different types of appointments are converted into a single configuration for which the healthcare professional may determine the criteria for the day and time availability and the possible time conversion associated from one type of appointment to another, such as walk-in appointment.

[0039] The methods of communication for each type of notification or alert may be configured by a user of the system, such as a professional or a client/patient. The system may use a different method of communication in situations or in context with regards to length of the period acceptable to receive a response from the user. As the shifting process may move one or more appointment scheduled within a short time period, such as a few hours, the system may use more than one communication methods simultaneously in order to reach the user, such as a voicemail and a SMS.

[0040] In another embodiment, the system may communicate a notification of the change to the assigned appointment to the client/patient. In this embodiment, the patient/client is deemed to have approved the change and may communicate a refusal notification to the system. There is no acceptation confirmation needed, but the user can refuse the appointment proposal by canceling its registration in the list of users / or patients. In the case of cancellation, a new appointment range will be available and the "shifting" process will be restarted.

[0041 ] The velocity of the unscheduled appointment must be calculated by the system. The system runs a computer program to calculate the velocity, using different parameters as input, such as:

• The average duration time for all unscheduled medical appointments of the n previous days for all the professional of a single or multiple establishments.

• The average duration time of the unscheduled appointment by one or more professional.

• The variation pattern and the analysis of average per a specific professional.

• The variation pattern and the analysis of average of one or more appointments durations depending on the time of day.

• The trend of performance pattern analysis such as the trend associated to advancing appointments or to delaying appointments

[0042] The system makes use of the resulting calculated velocity in order to determine if one or more actions are to be taken to add an offset to upcoming appointment, especially in the event of an existing delay to the current appointment.

[0043] The system described in the present invention is configured to manage one or more appointment schedules. In a preferred embodiment, the system comprises a communication network, at least one application server, at least one web server configured to communicate with at least one application server over the communication network, at least one client device configured to communicate with at least one application server over the communication network, at least one data source configured to store the appointment information and the patient information such as the vulnerability and availabilities. Furthermore, the system for managing appointments comprises a multimedia appointment managing system where the patient can interact using any communication method, such as by phone, via a web-based interface, by email, by SMS, etc. The system comprises a complete automation of appointment management processes to create a new appointment schedule and to update appointment. Such automation system must run without any human interaction. The system is also configured to provide a decision-making process regarding healthcare professional intervention and appointments schedule for individual patient profile and input and must automatically update the schedule or agenda of one or more professional. [0044] Typically, the system is installed on an application server and the system establishes one or more communications with other communication systems, such as telephony systems, email server (inbound and outbound) or mobile communication systems or providers. Using one or more communication methods, the system is configured to send requests to a client/patient and/or professional, to fetch and analyze data from a data source and to receive information from client/patient users. As an example, when the system receives a cancellation request by a user, the system triggers the "shifting" process as an action.

[0045] While illustrative and presently preferred embodiments of the invention have been described in detail hereinabove, it is to be understood that the inventive concepts may be otherwise variously embodied and employed and that the appended claims are intended to be construed to include such variations except insofar as limited by the prior art.

Claims

Claims 1) A method for managing scheduled and unscheduled appointments, comprising the steps of: - receiving at least one request for an appointment from a user using at least one communication method wherein the request comprises the level of urgency of the user, a specific professional and at least one desired time period; - calculating the level of priority associated to the at least one request for an appointment; - determining one or more available time period within at least one agenda of the specific professional matching the at least one desired time period; - calculating the velocity of the past unscheduled appointments of the specific professional; - based on the calculated velocity, optimizing the schedule of the specific professional; and, - assigning the requested appointment within the agenda of the specific professional. 2) A method as described in claim 1, wherein the optimization of the schedule of the specific professional comprises at least one of the following steps: - replacing at least one assigned appointment with the requested appointment and moving the assigned appointment at an available time period; - delaying at least one assigned appointment; - cancelling at least one assigned appointment; - converting at least one assigned appointment into a another type of appointment. 3) A method as described in any of claims 1 or 2, wherein the at least one request for an appointment requests a change to at least one assigned appointment. 4) A method as described in any of claims 1 or 2, wherein the at least one request for an appointment requests a cancellation to at least one assigned appointment. 5) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the at least one request for an appointment is communicated by the user using a computerized device. 6) A method as described in claim 5, wherein the computerized device comprises a graphical user interface, a processor, a random access memory device and network connection. 7) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the at least one request for an appointment is communicated by the user using a phone through a phone network. 8) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the determination of the one or more available time period within at least one agenda of the specific professional uses one or more of the following variables: - level of urgency; - availability of the specific professional; - availability of professionals other than the specific professional; - cost effectiveness; - number of requests for an appointment received within a specific time period. 9) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 8, wherein the method further comprises a step to profile and manage the date of at least one specific professional. 10) A method as described in claim 9, wherein the at least one specific professional inputs one or more objective goals and wherein the profiling and data management is based on the one or more objective goals. 1 1) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 10, wherein the determination of the one or more available time period is based on the specific professional inputted criteria and on an integrated decision-making process. 12) A method as described in claim 1 1, wherein the criteria is at least one of the followings: - starting working time for each day; - ending working time for each day; - number of clients to be served per day; - number of clients having specific cases and issues; - number of clients served by another professional during regular hours. 3) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 12, wherein the method further comprises: - inputting by the user one or more constraint at the time of the communication of the request for appointment; - using the one or more constraint to determine the of the one or more available time period. 14) A method as described in claim 13, wherein the at least one constraint comprises at least one condition. 15) A method as described in any of claims 1 to 14, wherein the calculation of the level of priority is at least based on the degree of vulnerability of the user; 16) A system for managing scheduled and unscheduled appointments comprising: - a communication network; - at least one server; - at least one client device configured to communicated with at least one server over the communication network; - at least one data source configured to store: i) scheduling appointment information; ii) user profile; wherein the system is configured to: - receive at least one request for an appointment for a specific professional from the at least one client device; - fetch the following data from the at least one data source based on the received at least one request for appointment:

(1) professional schedules;

(2) available time periods;

(3) durations of previous appointments;

(4) the profiled data associated to the request for appointment;

- determine the level of urgency of the request for appointment based on the fetched data;

- calculate the unscheduled appointments velocity based on the fetched duration of previous appointments;

- optimize the schedule of the specific professional based on the calculated velocity; and,

- assign the requested appointment to at least one agenda of the specific professional. 17) The system as described in claim 16, wherein the system is configured to optimize by triggering at least one of the following actions:

- replacing at least one assigned appointment with the requested appointment and moving the assigned appointment at an available time period;

- delaying at least one assigned appointment;

- cancelling at least one assigned appointment;

- converting at least one assigned appointment into a another type of appointment.

18) The system as described in any of claims 16 or 17, wherein the at least one request for an appointment requests a change to at least one assigned appointment.

19) The system as described in any of claims 16 or 17, wherein the at least one request for an appointment requests a cancellation to at least one assigned appointment.

20) The system as described in any of claims 16 to 19, further comprising a module for automatically generating an agenda for at least one specific professional.

21) The system as described in any of claims 16 to 20, wherein the profiled data comprise one of the following criteria associated to the profile:

- level of urgency;

- number of requests for appointments during a specific time period.

22) The system as described in any of claims 16 to 21, wherein the server comprises a web server and an application server and wherein the web server is configured to communicated with the application server and wherein the application server is configured to communicate with the at least one data source.