Challenges in Healthcare Services and Need for Online Scheduling

With the increase in population of UK, the demand for health care services is increasing. Currently the population of UK is around 65, 648, 100 and the ageing population is one of the major reason for changing health care demands (United Kingdom population mid-year estimate – Office for National Statistics 2017). This in turn will mean that prevalence of chronic and long-term disease will increase. To manage the complexity of people’s health care needs, there will be a need for better procedures to handle patients and support them in accessing health care services.

One of the challenges for administrator due to high flow of patient is the management of appointment scheduling. The process of schedule becomes troublesome due to use of traditional devices like phone calls. Hence, new alternatives and techniques is needed to assist patient. In the digital world, scheduling appointment over phone is time consuming process and there is need for online scheduling to make the process easier and free from trouble for all group. Therefore, the business idea is to implement an online scheduling system that instantly provides detail of physicians in the city and allow people to book appointments through mobile app. This report analyses the feasibility of the business idea according to the health care context of UK

Long waiting time and far location of outpatient clinic is a cause of dissatisfaction and poor service use among patients. Often it increases the risk of complication in patient. To make service readily available to patients and decrease large waiting time, optimizing the appointment scheduling system is necessary (Zacharias and Pinedo 2014). To test the feasibility of the online appointment scheduling system for health care, it is necessary to analyze the health care structure and health care life cycle of UK. UK has a government sponsored health care system and the National Health Service (NHS) defines the series of public funded health care systems in UK.

NHS is committed to providing greater information to patient, increasing staff level, improving service standards and reducing waiting time for appointment (Grosios et al., 2010) By reviewing this commitment, it can be said that the business idea of online scheduling will become easier with the support from NHS. However, there are some challenges in the system too.

The relentless demand of the service is increasing the waiting and increasing the financial pressure for NHS. According to the first quarter report of 2016/2017, the number of patients coming to emergency department in UK has increased by six million (Evan and Saskia 2017). Due to the increased demand for service, the threshold value of patients occupying bed in hospitals has also surpassed the safety limit. Hence, arrival and service time variability may affect the implementation of the online scheduling system in health care.

The implementation of the online scheduling system will also have to pass through the life cycle phase of introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The following considerations will be needed at each stage of life cycle for implementation of online scheduling system:

Feasibility analysis

Introduction stage: The administrator need to plan about the type of online scheduling needed according to service type variability and patient provider preference.

Growth stage: In this stage, experience of scheduling staff in using required information technology for online scheduling is necessary.

Maturity stage: The patient demographic and the uptake of the new system will determine the success of the business idea for health care.

Decline stage: Successful implementation will depend on increase in online scheduling system among patients and compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (Gupta and Denton 2008).

Analysis of industry environment to introduce online scheduling: 

Supplier’s power: The bargaining power of supplier will be high because health care centers will be dependent on them for introduction of online scheduling system.

Buyer’s power: The bargaining power of buyer’s is high because the success of the project is dependent on the way client’s use this service. There are certain people who do not prefer online booking and are convenient with the traditional system of booking. This may hurt the business idea.

Substitutes: The threat of substitute is low in case of online appointment scheduling in health care because the service provides many potential benefit both to the patient and the health care practice. It minimizes the chaos associated with manual scheduling system and health care providers can choose different types of scheduling options based on practice and type of health care service provided (Erdogan et al., 2015).

Competitors: The high usage of online scheduling system is dependent on the development of a user-friendly system. Hence, different types of advanced technology determines the efficiency of the system and so different types of  advanced technology and appointment scheduling software  can act as a major competitors in this venture.

Potential entrants: The threat of new entrants in the business idea is low because whatever advancement may come, online booking system cannot be replaced. There are chances of improving the system, but total replacement option is low.

Customer orientation evaluation: 

To go forward with the project, customer evaluation will be necessary to determine the usage of the service among health care consumers. First, primary and secondary data needs to be collected to identify the number of consumers using traditional booking system now. This will help to compare the no show at the appointment desk after the implementation of service. Critical evaluation will also be needed to identify the resource needed both internally and externally to implement and operationalize the new scheduling system. The data collection phase may done by clinic wise survey and needs assessment report (Grol et al. 2013). On that basis, key deliverable, staffing requirement, resource requirement, written specifications and deployment plan can be made. A detailed implementation and deployment timeline will also be needed to achieved key objectives at the right time.

Customer segmentation and profiling can be done by means of  analyzing the main group of customers coming to access the health care service. On the basis of different age group of client, the focus will be to introduce a feature that is readily available for all groups of consumer. To attract more and more consumers to use the system, 4Cs of customer experience needs to be provided. These are content, convenience, consistency and contextual advantage (Gunter and Furnham, 2014). Analysing key stakeholders in the venture is also important. This may include consumer, administration, health care managers and health care providers. Getting their view of the service and convincing them about the advantage of service to meet health care demands is necessary.

Competitive intelligence: 

While going forward with the online scheduling system project, availability of online different types of online scheduling system in other health care facility will provide stiff competition. The competition in the digital world is high because consumers now get access to unlimited choices in terms of online scheduling apps and other tools (Feldman et al., 2014). Therefore, determining what unique and seamless property an administrator can include in their online scheduling tool will segregate them from other competitors and determine the success of the business venture. Some of the top features that can be added to offer unique property to the online scheduling system include the following:

• Appointment reminder features
• Calendar integration
• Customer management features
• Payment processing features
• Compatibility features

The above mentioned features will help to enhance performance and promote competitive intelligence in planning and implementation of online scheduling system too.

The business idea of online scheduling is likely to give a competitive edge to health care centre because it helps to serve four important business needs:

1. Online scheduling can accelerate the sales cycle and generation of revenue. The likelihood of revenue generation is high because of higher lifetime customer value and increased customer engagement with the product.
2. It has the potential to provide a superior customer experience to health care consumers. This will lead to retention of the service. There is greater likelihood of switching to online self-scheduling tools dues to penetration on internet and digital technology and devices. Consumers are most likely to accept it because of greater convenience and control over booking and efficiency of the system (Snyder et al. 2014). There is a prediction that 64% of patients will book health care appointments by online mode by 2019 (Business Case for Online Appointment Scheduling & Customer Engagement 2017).
3. The online scheduling system also has the potential to increase the brand loyalty factors by means of repeat purchasing, recommending the service or app to others and trying new offerings in health care.
4. The most significant point is that it reduces the cost of appointments.

Conclusion: 

The market feasibility report summarized the potential of online scheduling system to address the high care demands in UK and save time and late appointments for clinical service. The success of the project was evaluated on the basis of structure of industry and opportunities to get adequate support for the venture. The performance of the service was also evaluated in terms of industry environment by Porter’s five forces analysis. The identification of challenges and opportunities in the project helped to devise customer-orientation plans and determine the key deliverables needed to achieve the project goal. The competitive intelligence of the service was sought to be enhanced by unique scheduling features and realizing the diverse range of advantage of the service for business and revenue generation.

Reference

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Evans, R., and Saskia, K. 2017. Demand for NHS services soars to record levels. The King’s Fund. Retrieved 14 August 2017, from https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/press/press-releases/demand-nhs-services-soars-record-levels

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Grosios, K., Gahan, P.B. and Burbidge, J., 2010. Overview of healthcare in the UK. EPMA Journal, 1(4), pp.529-534.

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Snyder, K., Ornes, L.L. and Paulson, P., 2014. Engaging patients through your website. Journal for Healthcare Quality, 36(2), pp.33-38.

United Kingdom population mid-year estimate – Office for National Statistics. (2017). Ons.gov.uk. Retrieved 14 August 2017, from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/timeseries/ukpop/pop

Zacharias, C. and Pinedo, M., 2014. Appointment Scheduling with No?Shows and Overbooking. Production and Operations Management, 23(5), pp.788-801.