I want a patient queue and call-display screen — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
Four components: a ticket dispenser or prior booking that issues the number, a screen in the waiting area showing current and next, a button at each physician to call the next patient, and a notification on the patient’s phone so they can wait outside the room. The fourth has the greatest effect on patient satisfaction and is the least implemented — because it frees the patient from sitting an hour in a crowded hall.
The notification on the patient’s phone is the highest-impact component and the least implemented, because attention goes to the screen. A patient able to wait in their car or a nearby café and receive an alert ten minutes before their turn rates the experience far higher — and your waiting area becomes less crowded with no expansion, a genuine operational benefit.
And the time estimate must be computed from each physician’s actual average visit duration rather than a fixed number. A physician taking twenty minutes and one taking eight should not carry the same estimate, and a wrong estimate is worse than none because it builds an expectation that is then broken. Show a range rather than a figure — “roughly 15 to 25 minutes” is more honest than “20 minutes” and absorbs the variance.
And make re-ordering visible when an urgent case is inserted. A patient watching a later number called before theirs with no explanation feels wronged and takes it to reception, and one line on the screen (“urgent case — apologies for the delay”) prevents that entirely. Transparency here is cheaper than any later handling of the complaint.
- The phone notification: highest impact, least implemented
- Estimate from each physician’s average, not a fixed number — show a range
- Explain re-ordering when urgent cases are inserted