QCare

Framing the Problem

What is the problem you are trying to solve? Who does it affect?

NHS patients getting referred to specialist clinics are left not knowing where they stand in long, monthly and sometimes even yearly, waiting lists. This introduces a plethora of problems for both the clinic and its patients:

• Patients have no sense of progression which can induce stress

• Due to the long waiting times and lack of communication, patients may decide to self medicate, seek private healthcare or no longer require the service. This means many first appointments can be missed and delays the care of those still waiting

• NHS resources are wasted on answering frequent questions of distressed patients asking about referrals and their position in the list

Idea Explanation

What is your idea? How does it fix the problem?

Create a centralized platform where patients can view the clinics they have been referred and track their progression. We provide clarity by showing them where they stand and when they can expect their first appointment based on the previous performance of the queue.

Allow patients to cancel unneeded referrals and we encourage patients to cancel appointments that are no longer needed by sending periodic SMS notifications and escalating appropriately when there is no reply.

Implementation

How do all the pieces fit together? Does your frontend make requests to your backend? Where does your database fit in?

We have a database storing our patients, clinics, and referrals. The central idea is storing the dates when a referral has been accepted and forming a queue based on which patients are still awaiting appointments. Based on this date, patients will also be sent SMS notifications of where they stand and asked if they still need care through twilio technology.

Our frontend is made to be clean and accessible with minimal clutter all the available functionality clearly displayed.

Challenges

What did you struggle with? How did you overcome it?

Accomplishments

What did you learn? What did you accomplish?

Solution to a real world problem.

Next Steps

What are the next steps for your project? How can you improve it?