Abstract
In Japan, patients have universal access to any hospitals, leading to substantial increase in waiting time of outpatients and workloads of medical doctors. To resolve those problems, we developed a novel outpatient guide system using mobile phones (POGS). POGS guides patients via mobile phones without constraint of time and space. They can check-in a hospital from the designated nearby area. After check-in, they receive information about waiting time and the final introduction calls to a consulting room. After the consultation, patients are notified when the cashier machines are ready for their payment. We conducted a pilot trial to examine effectiveness of POGS with 10 participants (56.3±9.2 year-old) at the University of Tokyo Hospital. The results show that 9 participants (90%) were free from stress. Furthermore, the time between the final call and the entry to the consulting room of the test participants tended to be shorter in the POGS group (n=20) than the time in the control group (n=319) (47 ± 20 seconds and 112 ± 310 seconds, respectively, p=0.416, Wilcoxon rank sum test).
