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Appointments, Queue & Teleconsultation

Booking against each practitioner’s schedule, walk-ins, arrival tokens, a live queue for reception and a corridor screen for the waiting room. A teleconsultation type gives the visit a video room instead of a token. Whole-session clinics run on queue tickets: the patient books any day, then takes a numbered ticket from the app or the portal on the day, from a set time before the clinic opens. A self-service kiosk checks patients in and prints the ticket; the doctor or the counter calls the next number and the waiting-room screen announces it.

For:ReceptionCall centrePractitioners

Where:Appointments › Appointments · Today’s Queue · Waiting Room Screen

Today’s queue: who has arrived, who is with the doctor, who is next.
Today’s queue: who has arrived, who is with the doctor, who is next.
The appointments dashboard: bookings, arrivals, no-shows, waiting time.
The appointments dashboard: bookings, arrivals, no-shows, waiting time.

Before you start

Schedules
Appointments › Schedules: for each practitioner, the weekdays, hours and slot length. Booking offers only the free slots.
Appointment types
Appointments › Configuration › Appointment Types: consultation, follow-up, procedure, vaccination, teleconsultation. Tick “Teleconsultation” on the video type.
Video server
Patients › Configuration › Settings › Video meeting server. The public Jitsi server works out of the box; a hospital with its own server points it there.
Corridor screen
Open /queue on the waiting-room television; add /<department id> to show one department only.
Whole-session clinics
On a schedule, Booking = Whole session (first come, first served): patients book the session, not a time, up to its capacity; their number comes from the queue ticket on the day.
Queue ticket window
Patients › Configuration › Settings › Appointments & Queue › Queue tickets: how many minutes before a session tickets open (default 120). A schedule can set its own.
Check-in kiosk
Appointments › Configuration › Queue › Kiosks: one record per kiosk (where it stands, the service points it issues numbers for), Create kiosk login, set its password under Settings › Users. Run the kiosk browser full screen with silent printing — chrome --kiosk --kiosk-printing https://<hospital>/queue/kiosk — and an 80 mm receipt printer as the default printer.
Service points
Appointments › Configuration › Queue › Service Points: Reception (R), Cashier (C)… with the prefix on the ticket and the number of counters.

How to

Book an appointment

  1. Appointments › Appointments › New (or from the patient form › Appointments).
  2. Choose the patient, the practitioner and the type; the calendar shows the free slots of that practitioner’s schedule.
  3. Pick the slot; save. The patient receives an SMS confirmation if SMS is switched on.
  4. State becomes Confirmed.

Register a walk-in

  1. Appointments › Today’s Queue › Walk-in.
  2. Choose the patient (or register a new one) and the practitioner; the appointment is created at the current time and marked Arrived with the next token.

Arrive a patient and run the queue

  1. When the patient reports to the desk, open the appointment and click Arrive: the token is assigned; Print Ticket prints it on the receipt printer (or the patient checks in at the kiosk).
  2. Today’s Queue lists the arrived patients per practitioner in token order with the estimated wait.
  3. The practitioner clicks Start consultation from the queue or the appointment; the visit opens with the history loaded.
  4. No-show marks the ones who never came; the dashboard counts them per practitioner.

Reschedule or cancel

  1. Open the appointment; change the date or the slot and save, or click Cancel and give the reason.
  2. The patient gets a new confirmation (SMS) when the slot changes.

Hold a teleconsultation

  1. Book the appointment with the Teleconsultation type; a video room is created automatically.
  2. The patient sees the “Join the video visit” button on the portal and in the app from a few minutes before the time.
  3. The practitioner opens the appointment and clicks Join video; the visit starts and the room opens in a new tab.
  4. Document the visit as usual; there is no token and no waiting room for video visits.

Put the queue on the corridor screen

  1. Open the television’s browser at https://<hospital>/queue (or /queue/<department id>).
  2. The screen shows, per practitioner, the token now serving and the next ones, and the reception and cashier counters; it updates every few seconds, announces each call aloud (tap once to turn the sound on; add ?lang=en or ?voice=both) and needs no login.
  3. The patient sees the same information on the portal under Today, with their own token and the estimated wait.

Run a first-come-first-served session

  1. Patients book the session online or at the desk any day before; each booking holds a place in the session, not a time.
  2. From the ticket window (for example two hours before the start) the patient takes a ticket in the app or on the portal; numbers follow the order tickets are taken.
  3. At the desk, Arrive keeps a ticket holder’s number; a patient who arrives without a ticket gets the next number then.
  4. Today’s Queue and the corridor screen count ticket holders as in the line, so the estimated wait is honest before they arrive.

Give a queue ticket at the desk

  1. Open the appointment › Give Queue Ticket while the window is open.
  2. Before the window opens it says when it will; after the session ends it is refused.

Check in at the kiosk (patient)

  1. At the entrance kiosk: I have an appointment today, then scan the patient card or type the national ID or the file number — or the mobile number and the year of birth.
  2. Today's appointments appear with the doctor, the time and the room; Check in gives the number (a first-come session takes the queue ticket and checks in at once).
  3. The ticket prints: the number, the doctor and room, how many are ahead, and a QR that follows the queue live on the phone.
  4. No appointment: Take a number for Reception or the Cashier; the ticket says R-007 and the counter calls it.

Call the next patient

  1. A doctor: Today's Queue › Call my next patient (list view), or Call on the patient's card.
  2. Reception: Call on any patient with a token; Call again repeats it.
  3. The waiting-room screen flashes the number with a chime and announces it — 'Number 12, please go to room 11' — in Arabic, English or both; the patient's app and portal say You are being called, the SMS gives the room, and the patient two places behind is told to come back to the clinic.

Run a reception or cashier counter

  1. Appointments › Counter Desk: choose the service point and your counter (remembered on this computer).
  2. Call next calls the lowest waiting number to your counter; Call again, Served, Did not come; New ticket prints a number for someone at the desk.
  3. Counter Tickets lists the day's numbers, who was served and when.

Print a ticket

  1. On an appointment with a token: Print Ticket; on a counter ticket: the printer icon.
  2. The 80 mm ticket opens and prints; the kiosk and the counter desk print theirs by themselves.

Questions the desk asks

The patient wants a specific doctor who has no schedule that day.

Book on another day, or add a one-off slot under Appointments › Schedules; a booking outside the schedule is refused on purpose.

Where do online booking requests go?

Patient Portal › Portal Requests. Reception converts each into a confirmed appointment; the patient sees the status on the portal.

A patient says the app will not give a ticket.

The ticket window has not opened yet (the app shows a countdown), the session has ended, or the visit is by video — video visits have no ticket.

See also: Patients & Registration SMS Messages Patient Portal Visits (EMR)

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