JPH03285441A - Reservation system at hospitals etc. - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A. Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a reservation system that is introduced into general hospitals, clinics, testing facilities, medical examination facilities, various consultation offices, and the like.

B. Conventional technology The reservation system conventionally introduced in general hospitals, etc.
When a patient requests a consultation appointment, the reservation taker assigns the department and treatment time for the client based on their experience, registers this in the reservation system, and contacts the client. C1 Problems to be Solved by the Invention of Completed Reservation However, the above-mentioned reservation system has the following problems in dealing with unexpected (unreserved) patients: 1. There is no system in place to change reservation times at any time and notify patients of the changed times. For this reason, if an unexpected patient is treated, the appointment time will be disrupted (delayed). In addition, patients with subsequent reservations come to the hospital without being informed of the change, resulting in more and more irregularities in their reservation times, and end up having to wait inside the hospital even though they have made reservations. This is not only inconvenient for patients, but also calls into question the hospital's response, and it means that the hospital is losing ground in terms of business strategy to competing hospitals.

This invention was made in view of the above circumstances, and aims to provide a reservation system for hospitals etc. that can reduce patient waiting time as much as possible even if reservation times are disrupted. .

Means for Solving the Problems The present invention has the following configuration to achieve the above object.

That is, the reservation system for hospitals, etc. of the present invention is a reservation system for hospitals, etc., where reservations are registered by writing the reservation time and the name of the person making the reservation (reservation information) in the reservation schedule form. An input means for inputting reservation status data such as the number of waiting patients and patient consultation details, and empirical knowledge such as consultation hours according to the reservation status and the average consultation time of the doctor in charge are stored as production rules. a knowledge base; an inference mechanism for inferring a change time for the reservation time based on the reservation person status data input from the input means and the empirical rule knowledge in the knowledge base; It is characterized by being equipped with a means of communication for contacting the person making the reservation.

89 Effects According to the reservation system for hospitals, etc. of the present invention, when the input means inputs reservation person status data such as the number of patients waiting for each clinical department and the details of patient consultation, the inference i structure Production rules such as the medical treatment time and the average treatment time of the doctor in charge are read out from the knowledge base according to the situation of the person making the reservation, and the change time for the reservation time is inferred from the read production rule and the situation data of the person making the reservation. The results of the inference are communicated to each reservation holder by means of communication.

F. Example Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a reservation system of the present invention.

The symbols A and B surrounded by dotted lines on the right side of this figure indicate the homes of users of this reservation system. There is a telephone II (hereinafter also referred to as Butshuphone P) with two push buttons and a facsimile reception I! F is provided.

A block diagram of the reservation system is shown on the left side of the drawing of these user homes A and B.

The reservation system in this embodiment has been introduced at a general hospital (a hospital with many medical departments).

The general configuration of the reservation system will be explained with reference to FIG. 1.

In the figure, the code 1 is PBX (private bra
nch exchange (private branch exchange telephone), which consists of a private branch exchange and an extension telephone for telephone communication between the inside of the hospital and between the inside and the outside.

2 stores the reservation schedule format, and registers the name of the reserved patient and the reservation date and time in this formant.
This is a reservation reception system to be updated, and is interconnected with a computer terminal C used by a person in charge of reservation reception (for example, a nurse, a clerk, etc.). Reference numeral 3 denotes a telephone set for the reservation staff to receive telephone reservations from users. Reference numeral 4 denotes a button response system, which analyzes the button push button signals sent from the user and outputs the reservation details to the computer terminal @C.

A general reservation system is constructed by each of the above components.

Next, components newly added to the reservation system of the present invention will be explained.

First, computer terminals were installed in each clinical department. Each department is indicated by a dotted line at the left end of FIG. 1, and in this example, I is internal medicine, ■ is orthopedic surgery, ■ is radiology, and ■ is examination fee.

And computer terminals ic,,c, for each clinical department.

C,,C, are installed. These computer terminals C1, Cz, Cx, and C- are used to input status data regarding patients currently being examined and patients waiting to be seen in each clinical department, as well as the name of the doctor in charge today. This status data is entered by doctors and nurses belonging to the clinical department, such as the age and gender of patients currently being seen, prescription details (or test details), number of patients waiting to be seen, etc. Status data such as the number of patients who have completed consultations and the number of patients who have not yet been examined are sequentially input. These input status data are configured to be given to the reservation reception system 2 as reference data when changing reservations.

In the figure, reference numeral 6 denotes an expert system that infers the difference in reservation time with respect to the reservation schedule registered in the reservation reception system 2 based on the reference data given to the reservation reception system 2. It consists of a mechanism 7 and a knowledge base 8. Within this knowledge base 8,
Production rules (if = then
format). Specific examples of knowledge are shown in the second section.
It is shown in graphical form in Figure 9. Figure 2 shows the medical conditions and average treatment time in internal medicine; similarly, Figure 3 shows the average treatment time in orthopedics, Figure 4 shows the average treatment time in radiology, and Figure 5 shows the average treatment time for examination fees. Figure 6 shows the average consultation time for each doctor. In this figure, the average consultation time for each doctor is indicated by a dotted line. In this example, the average consultation time for each doctor is set to 10 minutes. ing. Therefore, the knowledge obtained from this diagram is that, for example, the average consultation time for doctor C is 1
5 minutes, and you can get the knowledge that you are 5 minutes later than the average. Figure 7 shows the average consultation time according to patient age and gender.
Figure 8 shows the time delay rate according to the number of waiting patients, and Figure 9 shows the time delay rate based on experienced events (absenteeism of nurses and receptionists, weather, etc.).

All the empirical rule knowledge shown in the above figures is converted into production rules and stored in the knowledge base 8.
Listed below are some examples of heuristic knowledge that has been converted into production rules.

if (medical condition = cold) then (consultation time = 5 minutes) i
f (Doctor in charge = () then (Clinic time - 15 minutes) if (Number of waiting patients - 10) then (Time delay rate = 157χ) if (Weather - heavy snow) then (Time delay rate = 135χ) As shown above The rule is ``If the patient's medical condition is a cold, the average treatment time is 5 minutes.'' The rules described below are interpreted in the same way.

In addition to such an expert system 6, a communication means for notifying the user of the changed reservation schedule is added, and the equivalent means are the voice response system 9 and the facsimile response system 10 shown in Figure 1. It is.

The voice response system 9 combines, for example, a recording storage type voice memory 11 that stores voice waveforms for answers word by word, and each word in the voice memo January 1 in the specified order (specified by the reservation reception system 2). Then, the editing control unit 12 edits the text for the reply message and specifies the telephone line to which the reply message is to be sent, the audio output unit 13 outputs the reply voice message output from voice memo January 1, etc. It is configured.

The facsimile response system 10 is a reservation reception system 2
A character pattern conversion unit 14 converts the information (answer) sent from () into a character pattern one by one, a facsimile response control unit 15 that forms the converted character pattern as a facsimile signal, and a facsimile response unit that outputs the facsimile signal. It consists of 16 etc.

Next, the operation of the above-mentioned reservation system will be explained.

First, creation of a reservation schedule (writing to a reservation schedule format) by the reservation reception system 2 will be explained.

Creation of this reservation schedule begins with the hospital's reservation staff accepting reservation messages from users (patients). When the person in charge of reservations receives a reservation request from a patient using the telephone 3, the person in charge of reservations inputs the reservation time and the name of the patient to be reserved one after another into the reservation reception system 2 via the computer terminal iC. At this time, the doctor listens to comments from the patient who has requested a reservation (generally what kind of illness the patient has), determines the patient's medical department and treatment (or examination) time, and registers the reservation. When determining this consultation time, refer to the average consultation time for each department as shown in Figures 2 to 5 (a format for such data is provided on the desk of the person in charge of reservations). ), tentatively determines the treatment time to be allocated to the patient requesting a reservation, and executes reservation registration. Then, the registered appointment date and time are returned to the patient. Also, the computer terminal C via the Punshuphone response system 4
In the same way, treatment times are assigned to reservation requests directly entered into the system, and reservations are registered and answered.

In this way, when the reservation time and reserved patient name are input to the reservation reception system 2, the reservation reception system 2 writes these reservation information into a preset format and creates a reservation schedule.

As an example of a created appointment schedule, an example of a radiology appointment schedule format is shown in FIG. 11(a).

In this figure, patient 1 is given 20 minutes as an examination time, but as explained earlier, this is allocated by the person in charge of reservations with reference to the past average treatment time.

Well, I came to the hospital on the day that such an appointment schedule was scheduled. patients may not be able to receive a medical examination or test as scheduled.

There are various factors that can cause this situation to occur, but for example, if a patient visits the internal medicine department as scheduled,
If the internist determines that it is necessary to perform a tomography of the head as a result of an examination at the internal medicine department, the patient will be sent from the internal medicine department to the radiology department. When workers unexpectedly visit each clinical department, a situation arises in which patients with reservations cannot be seen as scheduled. Also,
Factors such as different consultation times for each doctor and delays in patients' scheduled arrival times due to the weather that day interact to disrupt the appointment schedule.

Therefore, when the examination for the day begins, the expert system 6 shown in Figure 1 starts up, changes the reservation schedule for that clinic as needed according to the current situation, and uses the voice response system 9 and fax response system 10 as communication means. However, patients who have not yet visited the hospital will be notified of the change in their appointment time.

The general flow of the reservation schedule change process is shown in FIG. 10, and the reservation time change process will be described below with reference to this flowchart.

In step S1, it is determined whether the current time is the end time of the hospital consultation, and if the end time is reached, the reservation time change process for that day is finished. If it is not yet the end time,
Proceed to the next step S2.

In step S2, it is determined whether the current time is a preset time.

This set time refers to the time when the reservation time change process is performed. For example, if the set time is set to 00 minutes every hour, the reservation time change process according to the current situation every hour (processing after Stenobu S4) ) is 1 Te. In addition, even if the scheduled time has not arrived, if a patient of Mirai Clinic inquires about reservation confirmation, Ste.

The process proceeds to step S4, and a reservation time change process is performed (step S3).

Step S4: The inference mechanism 7 uses each data given to the reservation reception system 2 as reference data when changing the reservation time.
reads out. This reference data is a group of data indicating the current status of each medical department, which is input from the computer terminal of each medical department as described above. Assume that the following data is input from the computer terminal C3 of the radiology department as this reference data, and is read out by the inference mechanism 7.

■For patients undergoing examination, /examination contents-gastric fluoroscopy ■number of cloudy patients waiting for examination--one of 7 patients/examination contents-head X-ray CT scan■number of unexamined patients (at Mirai Clinic), , ni,'s name ■Today's doctor - Doctor a The data in F. When the patient visits the radiology department and informs the radiology nurse, the nurse uses the computer terminal C3 installed in the radiology department.
Inputs that one subject has been added for head X-ray CT imaging.

When such reference data is read out, the next step S5
Then, the current reservation time lag time is inferred.

Step S5: First, a production rule having the read data as a conditional statement (a statement written after if of the production rule) is read from the knowledge base 8. For example, examination details for patients waiting to be seen - head XICTI
The following rule is read out as a production rule with C- as a conditional statement.

if (Test content = head XICT photography) then (
Average examination time = 20 minutes) - see FIG. 4 Furthermore, the following rule is read out as the average examination time rule when the doctor in charge is C.

if (doctor name = c) then (5 minutes late for each doctor's average consultation time) - See Figure 6.
The rules such as the average consultation time and time delay rate according to the age and gender of the patient shown in FIGS. By sending the inference results back to the reservation reception system 2,
The reservation schedule (see FIG. 11(a)) stored in the reservation reception system 2 is updated based on the inference result. The updated reservation schedule is shown in FIG.

As shown in this figure, 7 is added to the patients who are not scheduled to be examined, and Doctor C's examination time is 5 minutes later than the average, so 4 is 30 minutes later than the original appointment time for the patient at Mirai Clinic. It turns out that the patient will be 35 minutes late.

Then, as a result of this inference, the revealed delay time is communicated to the patients at Mirai Clinic and to (step S6).

As a means of communication, if the patient has a facsimile receiver installed at 4 and 5, the facsimile response system 10 may be used to communicate by facsimile transmission; For example, the person in charge of reservations may contact the patient directly by telephone, or if the patient confirms the reservation, the voice response system 9 may be used to contact the patient.

In addition, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the reservation system for hospitals, etc. of the present invention was explained by giving an example where it was introduced into a general hospital.
This reservation system for hospitals, etc. is not limited to general hospitals.
It is also possible to introduce it as a system for making reservations at clinics, testing facilities, health checkup facilities, various consultation centers, etc.

Effects of the G0 Invention As is clear from the above explanation, according to the reservation system for hospitals, etc. of the present invention, the inference mechanism uses the reservation person status data and the empirical rule knowledge of the treatment time according to the reservation person status.
Since the change time for the reservation time is inferred and the inference result is transmitted to each user by communication means, each user can understand the difference in his or her reservation time before visiting the hospital.

Therefore, the waiting time in the hospital due to the difference in appointment time is greatly reduced, which is convenient for the users.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 to 11 relate to an embodiment of the present invention,
Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the general configuration of a reservation system at a hospital, etc. Figures 2 to 9 are diagrams showing the heuristic knowledge stored in the knowledge base in graph form, and Figure 10 is a reservation time update process. The flowchart shown in FIG. 1 is an example of the reservation schedule format. 2... Reservation reception system

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A reservation system for hospitals, etc., where reservations are registered by writing the reservation time and reservation person's name (reservation information) in the reservation schedule format, and the number of patients waiting for each department and the content of the patient's consultation etc. an input means for inputting reservation person status data, a knowledge base for storing empirical rule knowledge such as consultation hours according to the reservation person status and the average consultation time of the doctor in charge, in the form of production rules; an inference mechanism that infers a change time for the reservation time based on the reservation person situation data and empirical rule knowledge in the knowledge base, and a communication means that notifies the reservation person of the change time of the inference result. A reservation system for hospitals etc. characterized by the following.