System and method for scheduling medical examinations utilizing queues and providing medical examination route guide information to the scheduled examinations

• US 7,080,025 B2
• Filed: 07/05/2001
• Issued: 07/18/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Ito, Naoyuki, Mifune, Yoshiteru
• Primary Examiner(s): Hafiz, Tariq R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jarrett, Scott L.
• Application Number:
  US09/898,463
• Publication Number:
  US 20020152107A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,839 Days
• Field of Search: 705/9
• US Class Current: 705/7.19
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation

Abstract

In an on-site medical examination, an appointment is made from a work office in order to shorten the entire medical examination time of the patients and the order and the route can be shown at the medical examination site. The scheduler includes a waiting queue for individual medical examination items and a waiting queue for individual patients. The efficiency of the medical examination is achieved by communicating by wireless displays carried by patients at the medical examination site and by giving individual guidance concerning the places to go at the site.

Claims

1. A medical examination system for scheduling an appointment for patients comprising:

a plurality of wireless display devices that have a display part and a communication part held by each patient waiting for a medical examination; and

a server including a plurality of displays, said plurality of displays being capable of displaying guidance information including appointments included in a scheduler and displaying information from said respective wireless display devices, and a wireless communication means for communicating with said respective wireless display devices, wherein said scheduler includes;

a waiting queue means for individual medical examination items for forming waiting queues for each of a plurality of medical examination items and sequentially queuing the medical examination appointments of the patients, and a waiting queue means for individual patients for forming waiting queues for each patient and sequentially queuing medical examination items for which appointments are scheduled,

said scheduler includes means for scheduling a first appointment for a first medical examination of said medical examination items so that an available time to start said first medical examination on said medical examination items is calculated,

said scheduler includes means for scheduling at least a second appointment for a second medical examination of said medical examination items so that an available time to start said second medical examination on said medical examination items is calculated after the first appointment which has been previously confirmed with respect to remaining queues of said waiting queue means for individual medical items; and

said scheduler includes means for maintaining an unconfirmed state of an entire appointment process in case an interval between a starting time of the first appointment and a completion time of an appointment for a last medical examination item becomes at least equal to a predetermined amount of time and one of said medical examination items starts with an empty queue time period and means for changing the empty queue time period to a void queue time period that cannot be utilized again, and

means for repeating an appointment process and means for confirming the entire appointment process when an interval between the starting time of the first appointment and the completion time of the appointment for said last medical examination item becomes less than the predetermined amount of time and one of said medical examination items starts with a non-empty queue time period,

wherein said server includes means for forming information concerning medical examination guidance including an individual medical examination order, a starting time and an order of said medical examination items based on said waiting queue means for individual patients and said waiting queue means for medical examination items, on one of said plurality of displays of said server for respective patients, and

wherein said wireless display devices display the waiting queues for the respective patient as a queue data structure and guidance relating to a medical examination route in a form of at least one of dynamic maps and directions to a next scheduled medical examination item appointment to individual patients via said wireless communication means of said server.

2. The medical examination system according to claim 1,

wherein said server includes means for allowing a database of said server to be accessed from an external network.

3. A medical examination system for scheduling an appointment for patients comprising:

a plurality of wireless display devices that have a display part and a communication part held by each patient waiting for a medical examination; and

a server including a plurality of displays, said plurality of displays being capable of displaying guidance information including appointments included in a scheduler and displaying information from said respective wireless display devices, and a wireless communication means for communicating with said respective wireless display devices, wherein said scheduler includes;

a waiting queue means for individual medical examination items for forming waiting queues for each of a plurality of medical examination items and sequentially queuing the medical examination appointments of the patients, and a waiting queue means for individual patients for forming waiting queues for each patient and sequentially queuing medical examination items for which appointments are scheduled,

said scheduler includes means for scheduling a first appointment for a first medical examination of said medical examination items so that an available time to start said first medical examination on said medical examination items is calculated,

said scheduler includes means for scheduling at least a second appointment for a second medical examination of said medical examination items so that an available time to start said second medical examination on said medical examination items is calculated after the first appointment which has been previously confirmed with respect to remaining queues of said waiting queue means for individual medical items, and

said scheduler includes means for maintaining an unconfirmed state of an entire appointment process in case an interval between a starting time of the first appointment and a completion time of an appointment for a last medical examination item becomes at least equal to a predetermined amount of time and one of said medical examination items starts with an empty queue time period and means for changing the empty queue time period to a void queue time period that cannot be utilized again, and

means for repeating an appointment process and means for confirming the entire appointment process when an interval between the starting time of the first appointment and the completion time of the appointment for said last medical examination item becomes less than the predetermined amount of time and one of said medical examination items starts with a non-empty queue time period, and

said scheduler further includes means for determining that a completion time for an appointment for one of said medical examination items is delayed for at least an average time required for the medical examination on said one of said medical examination items and means for utilizing an empty queue time period in said waiting queue means for individual medical examination items so that a time for a next appointment is available for each of said medical examination items, said scheduler further includes means for representing a starting time as a leading queue when an empty queue time period exists within said queue and for representing a starting time when no empty queue time periods exist by the time immediately after the final patient completes a medical examination appointment so that the time is registered with said waiting queue means for individual patients and said waiting queue means for individual medical examination items by calculating the time so as to start from a time when an appointment is available in an earliest medical examination item,

wherein said server includes means for forming information concerning medical examination guidance including an individual medical examination order, a starting time and an order of medical examination items based on said waiting queue means for individual patients and said waiting queue means for medical examination items, on one of said plurality of displays of said server for respective patients, and

wherein said wireless display devices display the waiting queues for the respective patient as a queue data structure and guidance relating to a medical examination route in a form of at least one of dynamic maps and directions to a next scheduled medical examination item appointment to individual patients via said wireless communication means of said server.

4. The medical examination system according to claim 3, said medical examination system further comprises:

a personal computer installed in a medical examination site, wherein said personal computer comprises a communication means for communicating at close range with the wireless display device carried by a patient, a communication means for communicating with said server and a control means for outputting information relating to at least one of arrival of the patient and completion of the medical examination of the patient.

5. The medical examination system according to claim 3,

wherein said server includes means for allowing a database of said server to be accessed from an external network.

6. A method for scheduling an appointment of a medical examination for patients, said method comprising the steps of:

providing a plurality of wireless display devices, having a display part and a communication part, to a patient waiting for a the medical examination;

providing a server including a plurality of displays, the plurality of displays being capable of displaying guidance information including appointments included in a scheduler and displaying information from the respective wireless display devices, a wireless communication means for communicating with the respective wireless display devices,

forming waiting queues for individual medical examination items, and

forming waiting queues for each patient,

scheduling a first appointment for a first medical examination of the medical examination items so that an available time to start the first medical examination on the medical examination items is calculated; and

scheduling at least a second appointment for a second medical examination of the medical examination items so that an available time to start the second medical examination on the medical examination items is calculated after the first appointment which has been previously confirmed with respect to remaining queues of the waiting queues for individual medical items;

maintaining an unconfirmed state of an entire appointment process in case an interval between a starting time of the first appointment and a completion time of an appointment for a last medical examination item becomes at least equal to a predetermined amount of time and one of said medical examination items starts with an empty queue time period and means for changing the empty queue time period to a void queue time period that cannot be utilized again, and

repeating an appointment process and means for confirming the entire appointment process when an interval between the starting time of the first appointment and the completion time of the appointment for said last medical examination item becomes less than the predetermined amount of time and one of said medical examination items starts with a non-empty queue time period;

providing information concerning medical examination guidance including an individual medical examination order, a starting time and an order of the medical examination items based on the waiting queue for individual patients and the waiting queue for medical examination items, on one of the plurality of displays of the server for respective patients; and

displaying the waiting queues for the respective patient as a queue data structure and guidance relating to a medical examination route in a form of at least one of dynamic maps and directions to a next scheduled medical examination item appointment to individual patients from the server.