I have recently put in a system for a group medical centre that will almost give that.
No direct patient access to appointments though. (I think Medtech have that on their development horizon somewhere) At the moment we just have VoIP integrated into their creaking old pabx. Once the rest of the SNOM deskphones arrive (probably today) the system will be set up as per below. Quick description: 512/512 ADSL dedicated to VoIP. (No QoS complications with bandwidth contention) Legacy phone system removed and replaced with an Asterisk telephony server with TDM line cards (allows the system to function as a conventional PABX with incoming calls on standard lines through a call queue with music and position announcements). Reception can log phones on to accept calls from the queue, but so can anyone else from the other rooms. It's inexpensive to set up IPSEC VPN for a remote site. I currently have one setup to home for remote support. I can connect an extension at home and have it behave just like any of their other extensions. I can log my phone onto their queue and take calls. The button panel shows me which extensions are in use (in practice or remote extensions). I can transfer calls including to in use extensions if the caller wants to leave voicemail. Similar to my remote support VPN I can set up an extension anywhere that has decent broadband. If the practice has the ability to provide terminal logins from their server (this practice does) the remote worker can access appointments from a home office while taking reception calls. It doesn't need to be limited to appointments. If a specialist calls to speak to a GP they can transfer just the same as someone physically at reception. The terminal login would be locked down so that they only get access to the appointment application. The user security in the billing/appointment app can further restrict things if needed (options editing, financial reports etc) Also if you were a practice with satellite practices, you could build a phone system accross multiple locations and have someone from another practice location log in to take reception calls for your main practice if a couple of people had called in sick. I think one of the long lasting benefits of VoIP will be flexibility. Ultimately I think traditional telcos will start to compete with VoIP rates (then sometime down the track we will see enough maturity in systems to have a very high percentage of calls being able to be routed for free..... maybe in 5-10 years) Neil ----- Original Message ----- From: Dr Michael Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: gpcg talk <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 5, 2006 8:15:45 AM GMT+1000 Subject: [GPCG_TALK] Online appointmenting - with voip Dear Group Is anyone here aware of a service that offers online appointmenting? Ideally, this would coupled with voip. I.e. a patient calls a voip #, the 'secretary' (where-ever they may be and whomever they are employed by ) checks the online appointment system and books the patient in. Alternatively, the patient themself can book online. The practitioner has similar access. Please let me know - what would be the terminology for such a thing? Sincerely Michael Daly MBBS Melbourne _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
