Sichuan Launches First Intelligent Centralized Hospital Appointment Platform Enabling Multiple Examinations in One Visit

Prolonged and complex appointment registration for medical examinations, the inability to complete multiple tests on the same day, and patient confusion in distinguishing among X-rays, CT scans, and MRI scans—these long-standing challenges have been thoroughly resolved at West China Second University Hospital of Sichuan University. On June 19, the hospital became the first in the province to launch an intelligent centralized appointment platform covering both of its campuses. By seamlessly integrating 5G technology with an AI-powered appointment engine, the platform effectively addresses the traditional problems of “multiple queue visits and long waiting times” for examination appointments. It fully implements a new “highly intelligent, multi-channel, and fully self-service” appointment workflow, thereby enhancing patient satisfaction with the hospital’s examination services.

According to Director Chen Juan of West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University, the launch of the intelligent centralized appointment platform has enabled the hospital’s newly established Patient Service Center to fully replace the department-specific appointment model, achieving one-stop processing for medical and technical examination appointments. The platform’s “AI Brain” has replaced manual scheduling, reducing the time required for examination arrangements from nearly 30 minutes of queuing to just three seconds. It also automatically identifies priority rules, mutual exclusion rules, and association rules among items, thereby arranging the most reasonable examination times for patients. For multi-item examinations, the system prioritizes completing all tests within a single day, minimizing the need for patients to make multiple trips to the hospital.

The intelligent centralized appointment platform employs a time-slot-based reservation model, which refines examination appointment windows to within 30 minutes. Patients are only required to arrive at the hospital 30 minutes in advance, thoroughly resolving the issue of prolonged waiting times for examinations in the past. During the pandemic prevention and control period, this model enabled normalized measures characterized by “contactless appointments, queue-free examinations, and no patient congregation,” significantly reducing the risk of cross-infection within the hospital and supporting institutional epidemic control efforts.

Furthermore, the channels for scheduling and rescheduling patient examinations have been fully integrated across five major platforms, including the Patient Service Center, the hospital’s WeChat official account, self-service kiosks, and nurse registration stations, thereby thoroughly resolving the issue of patient queuing. Meanwhile, the platform centralizes the management and enables intelligent allocation of previously fragmented resources, such as specialist expertise, technician availability, and medical equipment. This optimization makes examination processes more rational, efficient, and patient-centered, while relatively reducing human resource inputs, allowing medical staff to dedicate more time to clinical patient care. These improvements foster harmonious doctor-patient relationships and an orderly medical environment.

Liu Hanmin, President of West China Second University Hospital of Sichuan University, stated, “In the future, the hospital will further expand the achievements of its intelligent centralized appointment platform, fully leverage cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, the Internet, artificial intelligence, and big data, and comprehensively promote the application of intelligent appointment models in areas including laboratory testing, health examinations, treatment, bed allocation, and day surgery. The goal is to build the world’s first AI-powered all-resource appointment platform supported by a dedicated 5G medical network, enhance the efficiency of medical resource utilization, further improve the intelligence and convenience of patient services, increase patients’ sense of gain, and establish a high-satisfaction patient service model.”