Installation and experience of an automatic scheduling system for multiple diagnostic examinations: in search of maximum utilization of regional health care resources.

We installed a scheduling system that optimally schedules multiple appointments for various diagnostic examinations for a patient based on patient characteristics, disease characteristics and conditions, characteristics of diagnostic examinations, possible interactions between two successive examinations, and features and availability of diagnostic equipment. The system consists of four client terminals, 12 laboratory terminals, and one server. After the run-in period, the system started operation in July 2000. A total of 14353 examinations involving 11447 patients were managed over 7 months. On average, approximately 82 patients per day underwent approximately 103 examinations. On average, 16.1 patients a day requested 2 or more examinations in a scheduling session (approx. 2.3 examinations/patient; maximum 5 examinations for a single patient). After reading the request sheet(s) (OCR sheet(s)), suggested time/date slots of examination(s) were displayed on the client terminal within 10 seconds. The average time required for a patient to establish his or her schedule was approximately 2 minutes. Thus, the system greatly mitigated the load on health care professionals in scheduling appointments for examinations. In general, patients had a positive impression of the system. Furthermore, networking through these health care facilities and implementing this automatic scheduling system as a centralized appointment system can easily establish a "virtual diagnostic examination center" that fully utilizes the diagnostic equipment and staff available at community health care facilities. We estimate that approximately 30% of the diagnostic examinations in a health care facility can be referred to another facility in this cooperative system.