Rashid Mohammed, Abeysundra Lasitha, Mohd-Isa Ahmad, Khan Yahya, Sismeiro Catarina
Undergraduate School of Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK.
Inform Prim Care. 2007;15(2):111-9. doi: 10.14236/jhi.v15i2.649.
Introduced in 2004, Choose and Book was one of the National Programme for Information Technology's vanguard initiatives. It was to transform the old booking system by combining, for the first time, electronic booking with patient choice of their first hospital appointment. However, doctors' use of the system has been reported as being persistently low. This study, carried out in London, endeavoured to explore doctor's views about the system and to see how far it has progressed.
A questionnaire was devised and administered via an email invitation, to doctors. It was sent to 1800 and completed by 105 hospital consultants and general practitioners.
Most doctors thought that the concept of electronic booking itself was a good idea. The benefits that have been observed so far include an improvement in patient attendance at their appointments and the ability of doctors to track referrals. The biggest problems were described as an increased workload, technical problems and an uneven distribution of appointments between hospitals. In addition, most doctors thought that patient choice was a misguided concept in electronic booking and most reported that they were unsatisfied with Choose and Book overall.
The 6% response rate may make the results less likely to be representative of the whole survey population. The authors acknowledge this and have made recommendations as to how to more comprehensively test the objectives of this study, in future.
In general, Choose and Book is still poorly perceived by doctors - particularly with respect to technical problems. There is still some support for the concept of electronic booking; however the patient choice element faces more resistance. Additional research is needed on this topic to further investigate the use of electronic systems in the health service.
“选择与预约”系统于2004年推出，是国家信息技术计划的先锋举措之一。它旨在通过首次将电子预约与患者对首次医院预约的选择相结合，来改造旧的预约系统。然而，据报道医生对该系统的使用率一直很低。这项在伦敦进行的研究，力图探究医生对该系统的看法，并了解其进展情况。
设计了一份问卷，并通过电子邮件邀请向医生发放。共发送了1800份问卷，105位医院顾问和全科医生完成了问卷。
大多数医生认为电子预约本身的概念是个好主意。目前已观察到的好处包括患者预约就诊率的提高以及医生跟踪转诊的能力。最大的问题被描述为工作量增加、技术问题以及医院之间预约分配不均。此外，大多数医生认为患者选择在电子预约中是一个被误导的概念，并且大多数人表示他们对“选择与预约”系统总体上不满意。
6%的回复率可能使结果不太可能代表整个调查人群。作者承认这一点，并就未来如何更全面地测试本研究的目标提出了建议。
总体而言，医生对“选择与预约”系统的评价仍然很低——特别是在技术问题方面。对电子预约的概念仍有一些支持；然而，患者选择这一要素面临更多阻力。需要对该主题进行更多研究，以进一步调查电子系统在医疗服务中的使用情况。
