Healthcare Technology Featured Article

February 25, 2010

Healthcare Technology and News: BookIT's iSMS Eases Health Issues in Finland's Hospitals


With everything going high-tech these days, medical centers also want to be in the loop.
 
Harassed physicians in Finland -- and soon, the United States -- can now schedule and confirm appointments of frustrated patients via text messages, thereby eliminating those inevitable queues and bringing relief to all.
 
New mobile apps for smartphones are receiving a lot of attention these days, but a Finnish firm, BookIT, has developed and is continuing to develop SMS- based solutions that make lives easier for all of us.
 
Their latest application, iSMS scheduling, allows medical centers to eliminate queues by scheduling and confirming appointments via text message. This service has already been launched in Finland and is ready for deployment in the United States.
 
The first medical center in Finland to use iSMS appointment scheduling, Lääkärikeskus, reported that the efficiency of BookIT iSMS service exceeded expectations; in less than 24-hours more than 60 per cent of patients used the text message service to schedule an H1N1 flu vaccination.
 
Many replies came within just minutes. DIC of Lääkärikeskus, Mr. Sampo Härkönen, MD, said, “The speed and ease of the booking process is very important to our customers. With the help of intelligent text messaging, booking appointments for swine-flu vaccination succeeded effortlessly and without queuing.”
 
Härkönen further added that Intelligent text messaging service from BookIT also made the work easier for staff. iSMS ensured that staff was free to attend patients.
 
BookIT iSMS appointment scheduling service is based on ubiquitous SMS so it can be implemented anywhere in the world. BookIT is already able to offer appointment scheduling to medical centers in the U.S. and Canada.
 
According to U.S. Account Manager, Bob Batz, scheduling services even to U.S. clients had been rendered possible and what needed to be done was to extent iSMS facility to other important areas of healthcare.
 
The inventor of iSMS technology, Jukka Salonen, founded BookIT ten years ago. Salonen had envisioned developing a mobile service that would aid in everyday tasks. Understanding the frustration of the common man when he had to stand in queues, Salonen worked on an innovation which would eliminate it. This heralded the birth of iSMS.
 
 
 
 
 

Mini Swamy is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Marisa Torrieri
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