Centralized Physician Profile Management and Booking System
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Hospital and insurance directories for healthcare practitioners often lack complete and up-to-date information, leading to inefficiencies in patient selection and appointment scheduling, resulting in low return on investment and increased costs due to outdated or incomplete data.
Innovation Solution
A centralized database system that allows healthcare practitioners to manage and update their profiles across multiple affiliations, with credentialing processes tailored to each hospital or insurance provider, and enables online appointment booking across multiple websites, ensuring accurate and complete information dissemination and streamlined patient access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a centralized database system is implemented to manage physician profiles across multiple hospitals and insurance providers, then the accuracy and completeness of practitioner profiles is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple separate directory systems (hospital directories and insurance provider directories) into a single centralized database system. This consolidation allows physician profile information to be maintained in one location and automatically distributed to all affiliated hospitals and insurance providers, thereby improving accuracy and completeness while the system manages the complexity through unified architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized database system serves multiple functions simultaneously: it acts as a repository for physician profiles, a distribution network for directory information, a credentialing verification system, and an appointment scheduling platform. This multi-functionality allows the system to improve profile accuracy across multiple organizations while consolidating what would otherwise be separate complex systems into one universal platform.
2Reliability
If physicians are required to update their profile information across multiple affiliations manually, then the information remains current, but the loss of time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables physicians to update their profile information once in the centralized database, and the updates are automatically propagated to all affiliated hospitals and insurance providers without requiring manual intervention at each location. This self-service approach maintains information currency while eliminating the time physicians would otherwise spend repeatedly updating the same information across multiple systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically distributing updated physician profile information to all affiliated directories as soon as changes are made in the centralized database. This automated preliminary distribution ensures information remains current across all platforms without requiring physicians to manually initiate updates at each affiliation, thereby reducing time loss while maintaining reliability.
3Ease of operation
If hospital directories provide limited information due to resource constraints, then the ease of operation is improved, but the loss of information increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the directory maintenance functions of multiple hospitals and insurance providers into a single centralized system. This merging allows the system to maintain comprehensive physician profile information including insurance acceptance, credentials, and availability without requiring each individual organization to manually collect and verify data, thereby preserving information completeness while improving operational ease through automation.
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized database system acts as an intermediary between physicians, hospitals, and insurance providers. It automatically collects, verifies, and distributes complete physician profile information to all affiliated directories, eliminating the need for each organization to independently manage information collection. This intermediary role ensures information completeness is maintained while reducing the operational burden on individual hospitals and providers.
4Productivity
If online appointment booking is implemented across multiple websites, then the productivity of patient scheduling is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized database system provides universal appointment booking functionality that operates across multiple hospital and insurance provider websites through a single integrated platform. This multi-functional approach allows patients to schedule appointments with any affiliated physician through any website in the network, improving scheduling productivity while the centralized architecture manages the complexity by providing a unified booking system rather than separate systems at each location.
Data Source
AI summary
Method and apparatus for the collection and management of healthcare practitioner profile information prior to inclusion in a hospital directory of affiliated practitioners or insurance provider directory of participating practitioners. Healthcare practitioners (e.g., physicians) enter and communicate changes to their profile data to a central database to increase their compliance and decrease the frequency of providing updated or incomplete information in a hospital or insurance provider directory. The profile data can be credentialed according to rules specific to each hospital or insurance provider, prior to inclusion in the directory. The directory may further provide online booking of available appointment times for affiliated physicians from multiple practice groups. The online booking process can simultaneously be available on multiple websites of a hospital, insurance provider, physician practice group and/or centralized provider (aggregator).