Today, the Hospital Authority (HA) launched “BookHA”, a new app to facilitate reservations at public specialist outpatient clinics. The app is available on both Android and iOS, and can be used in English and Traditional Chinese, according to a government press release.
At the moment, BookHA only caters for patients looking to make appointments at gynaecologists, but is due to expand to other specialist clinics in the coming months.
BookHA, which cost HKD500,000 to develop, also has a function that allows patients to check their application status, SCMP reports.
Prior to the app’s launch, patients looking to make new appointments had to either visit clinics in person (typically during office hours), or make an application by fax.
Currently, BookHA users can make appointments at gynaecology clinics in 14 different public hospitals using the app’s fuss-free form.
Chan Lai-hung, the Chairwoman of the HA’s working group on specialist outpatient clinic operations, told the SCMP that gynaecology clinics were chosen to feature on the app first as “their clinics are more flexible”.
Other specialist clinics are currently considered unsuitable for mobile booking, Chan said. She used psychiatric services – which only accept bookings made in person – as an example, as well as other clinics that are more commonly frequented by children and the elderly, who are less likely to know how to use apps.
Booking for ear, nose and throat clinics will be rolled at in September, and the app’s developers aim to have all specialist clinics become bookable within the next three years.
The HA’s chief systems manager Anthony Cheung said that all data would be encrypted, and scanned images of personal data would not be saved in applicants’ phones.
Cheung added that the app would have a QR code reader to scan barcodes in referral letters by June, while patients will be able to make appointment cancellations – which are currently done by telephone calls – via the app by September.
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