Data synchronization for booking of healthcare appointments across practice groups
AssigneeZocDoc, Inc.
InventorsOliver D. Kharraz Tavakol, Cyrus E. Massoumi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods for aggregating available healthcare appointment times across multiple unaffiliated practitioner groups, including search and display algorithms. A centralized marketplace is provided for real time booking of healthcare appointments which does not require the patient to have a preexisting relationship with the practitioner. The aggregated booking system enhances the number of available near term and conveniently located appointment options while the search and display algorithms reduce the complexity of the patient and practitioner information required to maintain accurate and synchronized database booking records.
Claims21
A method comprising:
- an aggregator of healthcare appointments maintains a central database of available healthcare appointments for a plurality of healthcare practice groups, and the aggregator provides a website for online booking of available healthcare appointments from the practice groups;
- each practice group has its own database of its own available healthcare appointments;
- and
- appointments are offered to patients from both databases concurrently by the aggregator and the various practice groups;
- the practice groups and aggregator communicate via a computer network and program code which automatically pulls available appointment times from the practice group databases for the aggregator database;
- and
- the aggregator sends the practice groups notices to check for and confirm availability of appointments.
A method comprising:
- an aggregator of healthcare appointments maintains a central database of available healthcare appointments for a plurality of healthcare practice groups, and the aggregator provides a website for online booking of available healthcare appointments from the practice groups;
- each practice group has its own database of its own available healthcare appointments;
- appointments are offered to patients from both databases concurrently by the aggregator and the various practice groups;
- and
- the practice groups send the aggregator available appointment times for an associated practitioner in time blocks, wherein a time block includes multiple contiguous available appointment times.
A method comprising:
- an aggregator of healthcare appointments maintains a central database of available healthcare appointments for a plurality of healthcare practice groups, and the aggregator provides a website for online booking of available healthcare appointments from the practice groups;
- each practice group has its own database of its own available healthcare appointments;
- appointments are offered to patients from both databases concurrently by the aggregator and the various practice groups;
- and
- when a patient books an online appointment from the aggregator's website, the aggregator notifies the practice group to confirm the booked appointment within a defined time period.
A method comprising:
- an aggregator of healthcare appointments maintains a central database of available healthcare appointments for a plurality of healthcare practice groups, and the aggregator provides a website for online booking of available healthcare appointments from the practice groups;
- each practice group has its own database of its own available healthcare appointments;
- appointments are offered to patients from both databases concurrently by the aggregator and the various practice groups;
- and
- the aggregator's website offers defined practitioner specialties and defined procedure types from which a patient selects to book an appointment;
- and
- the practice group specifies a procedure time for an associated practitioner and procedure type.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.