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KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — The Malaysian Health Ministry is making efforts to introduce an SMS-based system at hospitals in the country in a bid to reduce queues of patients. The New Straits Times said on Tuesday that the ministry had started a pilot project for that, in which the queue management and appointment reminder would send out an SMS when there are five patients before their turn. The system would also provide updated statistics for hospital services in the country, through which the ministry could monitor the number of patients, the illnesses being treated and the duration at the various departments within the hospital and clinics, the daily quoted Malaysian Health Minister Liow Tiong Laias saying. Liow held a briefing at Johor Baharu on Monday when he unveiled a pilot project to use the reminder system there. He said his ministry was still fine tuning the system in cooperation with a local telecom company, and once the kinks were ironed out, it would start implementing the system at medical facilities with high patient crowds. The Malaysian Health Ministry set a 30-minute waiting limit at local hospitals in 2009, but Liow said at present only 70 percent of local hospitals can follow that practice. He hoped that technology can further reduce patients’ waiting time. |
| Editor: Anne Tang |