abstract following the advances in mobile communication and information technology, smart phones have been used in a wide variety of commercial, social, entertainment, file sharing and health transactions and applications. the current procedures in healthcare environment for patient registration, appointment scheduling and payment are time consuming and somehow tiresome. traditionally, patients...

BACKGROUND Dermatologists are regularly consulted in their place of work by patients without an official appointment (individuals accompanying other patients, doctors from other specialties, hospital workers, etc). OBJECTIVES To describe the characteristics of consulting patients, reasons for consultation, severity of complaint, diagnostic and therapeutic approach taken, and level of care pro...

INTRODUCTION Recruitment of hospitalists and primary care physicians for Critical Access Hospitals and tertiary care hospitals in North Dakota is difficult. To address this challenge, 2 programs were implemented in Bismarck, North Dakota. METHODS St. Alexius Medical Center created a hospitalist fellowship training program in collaboration with the University of North Dakota School of Medicine...

A study was made of 813 orthopaedic referrals by 134 general practitioners in North Staffordshire. The referral rates showed no relation to practice list size or the doctors' previous orthopaedic experience. The published waiting times did not accurately reflect clinic vacancies, and no effective priority rating of letters by consultants was shown. Less than 1% of patients had an appointment wi...

Family doctors vary in the range of services they provide for their patients. Of 267 practices in Devon and Cornwall, 245 responded to a questionnaire sent in September 1989 asking for information about services to patients. Most doctors consulted at six to eight patients per hour, whether or not an appointment system operated. About two-thirds of patients had access to a female GP. Nine out of...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated motivation to attend appointments, self-efficacy, self-esteem, substance use, and emotional distress as predictors of optimal HIV appointment adherence in minority youth living with HIV. METHODS Utilizing a prospective design, questionnaires were collected from 82 minority youth (mean age = 20.3) at baseline and appointment adherence was assessed over the sub...