endt26

Family Clinic Services (FCS)

Appointment Scheduling System Case Study

iii

Table of Contents 1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Users of the System .................................................................................................................... 1

Patients ................................................................................................................................................ 1

Doctors and Service Providers ............................................................................................... 2

New Doctors or Service Providers ....................................................................................... 2

Receptionist ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Administrators ................................................................................................................................. 3

Staff ........................................................................................................................................................ 3

3. System Requirements ................................................................................................................ 3

Appointments and Appointment Type ............................................................................... 3

Agendas ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Schedule .............................................................................................................................................. 4

4. Other Requirements.................................................................................................................... 5

System Access ................................................................................................................................. 5

Performance Requirements ..................................................................................................... 5

Security Requirements ............................................................................................................... 5

Hardware/Software ..................................................................................................................... 5

Database.............................................................................................................................................. 5

User Interface .................................................................................................................................. 6

5. System Development and Implementation .................................................................. 6

Development Staff ......................................................................................................................... 6

Development Platform ................................................................................................................ 6

Development Methodology ....................................................................................................... 6

1

1. Introduction 1 Family Clinic Services (FCS) plans to implement a web-based appointment 2 scheduling system to help reduce the time that patients have to wait, reduce 3 incomplete schedules for doctors and service providers, and reduce the 4 amount of time receptionists are required to enter schedules for patients, 5 doctors, and service-providers. Doctors and other service providers see 6 approximately 1500 patients per year. 7

Currently the appointment process is managed by receptionists and a 8 requires a significant account of time. Unfortunately, patients also wait 20 9 to 30 minutes after their scheduled appointment time. This new system 10 should be able to reduce wait time for patients, improve doctor and service-11 providers schedules, and reduce the scheduling workload for receptionists. 12

This new system will enable patients, doctors, service-providers, 13 receptionist, and administrators to schedule and maintain appointments with 14 web technology that is available. It is anticipated that there will be separate 15 interfaces for the patient, the doctor and other service providers, as well as 16 administrators and receptionists. 17

Detailed requirements must be developed, and additional requirements or 18 activities may be identified as details are identified. 19

2. Users of the System 20 There are several categories of users including patients, doctors, service 21 providers, receptionists, administrators, and other staff. 22

Patients 23 Patients will be able to complete several activities with the new system. 24

New Patients 25

Patients will be required to create an account to schedule appointments. 26

New patients would need to complete a form as they currently do to enter 27 their personal information. Patient information that will be required include 28 their id (assigned by the system), name, address, home phone number, 29 work phone, cell phone, email address, Social Security identification number, 30 Medicare card number, insurance information, username, password, 31 emergency contact and other detailed information. 32

After their account is set up, these patients will be able to log into the 33 patient interface using a username and password, view their schedule and 34

2

personal information, update their personal information as necessary, modify 35 their appointments as necessary, and cancel their appointments. 36

Patients can cancel their own appointment, but it does require 24-hour 37 advance notice. Otherwise a penalty will be charged. 38

Returning Patients 39

Returning patients must be able to log into the patient interface using a 40 username and password, update their personal information as necessary, 41 schedule an appointment, modify their appointments as necessary, and 42 cancel their appointments. Patients can schedule their own appointments 43 via the Internet. 44

Doctors and Service Providers 45 Doctors, licensed personnel who treat patients, and other licensed service-46 providers will have an interface whereby they can log in using their 47 username and password, update their personal information, schedule and 48 block out hours like for lunch or meetings, print and email their schedules, 49 and view it on their screen. Their schedule will also contain information 50 about their patients. Doctors can view appointments to an identify all the 51 appointments that have been scheduled for a specific day or week. 52

Doctors can cancel a patient’s appointment in the case of an emergency. The 53 system will send a patient notice via email. 54

Doctors or service-providers use an agenda to manage appointments. An 55 agenda has many calendar days and is made up of many time slots of equal 56 length. 57

If doctors or service-providers leave the service, administrators must close 58 the doctor’s account and reschedule any outstanding appointments. 59

Doctors and service-providers can cancel within a 48-hour time. 60

Doctors or service-providers must be able to delete their accounts. if they 61 leave the clinic the administrator will also have to reassign the appointments 62 to another doctor. 63

New Doctors or Service Providers 64 New doctors will complete a form to enter their personal information and 65 such as their name, address, telephone number, social security number, 66 area of expertise, and other detailed information. Once they have an 67 account, they will have access to the same features that other doctors or 68 service-providers have. 69

3

Receptionist 70 Receptionists will be able to create, view, update, or delete appointments for 71 patients, doctors, or service providers. They will also be able to manage 72 patient, doctor, or service-provider schedules. 73

Administrators 74 Administrators will be able to create doctor/service-providers or patient 75 accounts; activate or deactivate a doctor/service provider account; schedule, 76 cancel appointments; add appointment types for each department; and 77 update doctor or service-providers information. 78

Staff 79 Other staff members can view the schedule and patient, doctor, or service-80 provider information. 81

3. System Requirements 82 83

The following sections describe the basic requirements of the proposed new 84 web-based system. Additional requirements are in other parts of this 85 document. This system is mainly focused on creating, viewing, updating, 86 and deleting data for users of this appointment scheduling system. 87

Appointments and Appointment Type 88 Appointments have a unique ID, start time, description, and associated 89 doctor or other service provider. Different types of appointments will be 90 made available such as for regular checkup, blood test, operation, medical 91 massage, x-rays, transfusions, or other tests or procedures. Each of these 92 appointment types will have a type, description, estimated duration, a 93 sequence number, start time, and status. Some will take 15 minutes, or an 94 hour and others will take up to three hours. Each type of appointment will be 95 with a different doctor or service provider. Once a patient chooses the type 96 of appointment that they want they will then be able to choose a date and 97 time for their appointment. Time slots will depend on the time that is needed 98 for the appointment type that was chosen and the availability of the doctor 99 or service-provider that handles that type of appointment. Appointments are 100 assigned to one or more Rooms. Rooms have numbers. 101

To make an appointment a patient must be logged in, can choose a 102 doctor/service provider and see their agenda, browse the calendar, choose 103 the appointment data and time, selects the appointment type, adds a 104 description, and submits the request. The system will either approve the 105 request and display the results or the system will prompt the user to make 106

4

another selection. If the appointment is approved, the system will update 107 the doctor/service-providers schedule. 108

Agendas 109 Agendas for doctors and service-providers include the date, weekday and 110 status. Agendas also provide access to time slots which include the start 111 time, end time, and status, as well as names of patients and service 112 providers. When patients make an appointment, the appropriate time slot is 113 modified. 114

Schedule 115 The schedule includes the timetable and is an organized list usually set out 116 in a tabular date and provider form providing information about arranged 117 events. The system must be able to manage (create, view, update, or delete 118 the schedule and its data) for all users. User must also have access to 119 alphabetical list of patients, doctors, and other service-providers. An easy to 120 use the calendar must also be available on the schedule interface. 121

5

4. Other Requirements 122 The following are additional requirements of the system. 123

System Access 124 Preconditions include that the system must be online, all accounts must 125 exist, and users must log in with. Authentication and authorization 126 procedures must be used 127

Performance Requirements 128 The system must be able to service multiple terminal connections 129 simultaneously with at least 75 internet users connected without delay. 130

The system must be able to process 90% of queries within a fraction of a 131 second. 132

Security Requirements 133 User authentication and authorization is required. Users can only change 134 their own schedules. Personal information must not be revealed due to 135 privacy regulations like HIPAA. 136

Hardware/Software 137 It is anticipated that no special hardware would be required; however, a 138 database management system will be required. 139

it is anticipated that any web browser could be used and any computer with 140 Internet access could be used by all types of people who will access the 141 system. Servers will be required to store the scheduling data and backups. 142 It seems that no major site adaptations are required. 143

The system must be online and accessible for Windows, Linux/Unit, or 144 Macintosh systems with a GUI interface through browsers. It must be 145 interoperable with other systems that users are like to need like Adobe 146 Acrobat. 147

Database 148 Database requirements include information collected for doctor, patient, 149 agenda, service-provider, appointment, appointment type, and time slots. 150 One day for example might consist of many different time slots perhaps 151 spaced 15 minutes apart. 152

The database should be normalized for space usage efficiency and response 153 time of less than three seconds. 154

The database must handle a maximum of 2500 users. Any invalid data must 155 be recovered with messages back to the user. The system shall be available 156

6

7 days a week for 24 hours each day. A backup plan must be implements 157 with disaster recovery included. 158

User Interface 159 The system interface must be user friendly and conform to consistent and 160 standardized colors and fonts. Help links must be provided. Online 161 documentation must be available and accessible on all pages. The system 162 must meet accessibility standards. Several user interfaces must be available 163 for all user. 164

5. System Development and Implementation 165 166

At this time decisions regarding development staff, the development 167 platform, and development methodology have been made. 168

Development Staff 169 The existing development staff will design the system although they do not 170 have experience with this type of automated system. They do not have 171 experience with Database Management Systems (DBMSs) either. The 172 project is large, but they are familiar with the manual scheduling system. 173 Experienced consultants may be hired, as necessary. The development staff 174 do have experience with web site development. 175

Development Platform 176 Appropriate development, testing, and deployment platforms must be 177 created. The platforms must provide the operating system, database, web 178 server, HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and other appropriate 179 software. 180

Development Methodology 181 This system will be developed following an iterative SDLC (System 182 Development Life Cycle) using both Structured Analysis and Design as well 183 as Object-Oriented modeling techniques. 184