IJN goes digital to boost accesibility

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Heart Institute (IJN) has stepped to another level after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a healthcare online platform called Booking for Doctor (BookDoc) to improve accessibility via the mobile application.
With the help of today's mobile and web technology, this new platform will allow patients and doctors to be connected at all times, especially in regards to their health condition where they can schedule appointments with the doctors through their mobile phones.
In addition, IJN is the first hospital in Malaysia that uses this online application for patients to schedule appointment with their doctors.
Chief Executive Officer of IJN Datuk Dr Mohd Azhari Yakub said that this collaboration is very timely and in line with the IJN's aspiration to extend it's cardiac specialist care services more widely.
"With BookDoc, the Cardiac Specialists would become more accessible to the patients via their availability slots.
"I guess customers now are very tech savvy and demanding for fast service and BookDoc will enable IJN to minimise the waiting time for our patients while optimising the work schedule with our specialists," Dr Mohd Azhari said during the MoU signing ceremony at the IJN today.
Dr Mohd Azhari said that this collaboration is as an extension to what IJN has achieved and also as a starting point for future projects including real time appointment booking with IJN specialists and online purchase of health screening packages.
"In 2013, we launched our new website which patients can also book online through our webpage to see the doctors. So, BookDoc will be an extension to make IJN more accessible.
"It is desire for IJN to be more accessible for public in Malaysia as well as our neighbouring countries and for that part, we are in the midst of enhancing our IT delivery," he said.
Dr Mohd Azhari added that this effort is also as a way to emphasise that it is not so difficult to obtain an appointment with the IJN.
"This is a way for us to show that we're ready for patients with our about 64 specialists working here and this is also a platform for them to reach out to the patients," he said.
He also said he look forward for this collaboration to be a successful technology in medicine field, throughout the country and overseas.
Also present during the MoU signing ceremony BookDoc founder Datuk Chevy Beh said that this platform has been started since September this year.
"Like restaurants, hotels and others, we can check them outs through many mobile applications, and so do for hospitals and clinics," he added.
He said that he is excited to see how BookDoc could potentially change the way the public access healthcare services with waiting time to see a doctor could be reduced drastically, even in the event of an emergency.
"The public will know at their fingertips the nearest healthcare service that is available anytime of the day," he said, adding BookDoc will be expanding to Singapore and Hong Kong at the end of this month, and to South East Asia region within the next six months.