Resource and appointment scheduling: closing the information loop.

Hospital-wide preparation is currently underway for a new patient care information system at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. Integral to this new system are two new products recently developed by the TDS Healthcare Systems Corporation: a permanent patient record system and a resource and appointment scheduling application. The new patient care information system can maintain up to 16 million records on-line and can be used throughout the medical center. This article will focus on the resource and appointment scheduling application and how it can be used to track resource utilization and close the information loop related to patient appointment activities.