Is there a demand for integration with other healthcare information system applications?
Since the scheduling process touches on so many aspects of healthcare delivery – from patient appointments for offices visits, lab tests, and operative procedures to the scheduling of care givers, equipment, and other resources necessary for the orderly and efficient care of the patient – scheduling must be an integral component of any clinical management application and tightly integrated with the entire patient care delivery process. Q: What specific features of scheduling applications are especially important in clinical management systems? A: Clinical systems need to integrate the management of the entire patient care process with the business process of healthcare, and scheduling applications can ensure that all resources required to deliver the appropriate care are available at the right time in the right place. This requires that the scheduling system identify and resolve resource conflicts, handle resource or task precedence (for example, the results of a lab test or a patient-
