One click away

Website with a program that allows you to search for a medical appointment without having to fill in your data more than one time.

Public health in Chile leaves much to be desired, not only because of its low quality, but also because of the well-known in the country “waiting lists”, to understand the gravity of these you need to know that the national average waiting time on these lists is greater than five months (2020) and it is very common to see news of people who die waiting to schedule a medical appointment. This explains why the only way to get access to “high-quality” health care services is to get care in the private sector. What for the middle class of the country, which makes up 62% of our population (2020), means only in clinics that work with the public health insurance "Fonasa", which the majority of Chileans are attached (77%), since it is much more accessible than seeing those doctors who offer discounts only to members of the private insurance "Isapre"

Not only to respect our right, but in order to achieve the SDG 3 “Good health and well-being”, it is necessary for all of us to be able to access quality health care whenever we need it. The problem is that many Chileans don’t get that and that has serious direct consequences such as not being able to be diagnosed with diseases immediately. But in a lot of cases, the appointments that people need are there, so why don’t we get to them?

Some factors involved are:

The immense number of private medical centers that exist in the country: This makes it difficult to search and schedule a medical appointment that meets all your requirements, since you need to fill in your data on way too many medical center websites.

Requirements to fill in your data in every website: This not only refers to the large amount of time required, but also to the basic knowledge of the internet that you must have, which may not mean an issue to you, but does to a lot of older adults. This is especially important in Chile, because this sector of the population is the one that usually needs access to these services the most often, and it is a sector that represents a significant percentage of the country’s population, where the birth rate is decreasing and life expectancy is increasing.

My solution is a project that involves a web page. It works as a search engine for medical appointments, since it has a space to complete the characteristics of the appointment you want and search for one that fits your wishes, it also allows you to create a profile with the necessary data to schedule the medical appointment immediately. To do this, the page is programmed with a simple html language and with python. When you click on “search for appointment”, the page completes the data on all the medical centers websites with which the web page works, simultaneously, then the page is updated showing all the appointments found, so the user is able to select one. The same page helps you book it, with the data you already entered when creating your profile. 

*If an appointment is not found, the page offers the option of showing similar ones or continuing to search for the desired one and sending an email if it is found (in case people cancel their hours, for example).

*The website also allows you to search by voice.

But the project is not only made up of this, in order to implement the solution in the best way possible, it involves a campaign to help older adults, where volunteers will be in public spaces explaining the website to these people, and even helping them to create a profile.

The target population of this project are those directly affected by the problem of finding and booking medical appointments, which are generally everyone over 18 years of age, but in this large group, the most benefited are those who can only financially access to certain services and those who, due to their education or age, have a hard time using technology day to day to make these reservations.

Public health often does not provide the necessary services or the quality that these people need and that is why they must look for medical appointments among all the private services to which their insurance allows them, this often becomes an arduous task. Task that this solution wants to facilitate for everyone regardless of their economic or social condition.

When the project is underway, all of the above mentioned people and more will benefit in more ways than one. To begin with, although those who we mentioned are those who search these medical appointments, these medical hours are often for children or older adults who will also benefit, now including even more individuals, we can say that they will not only be able to save time, but also to receive medical care whenever they need to, thus detecting many diseases early and not allowing whatever illness they already have to worsen.

I am currently a highschool student, but extra-programmatically I already have participated in various STEM activities, such as workshops and competitions, this in addition to having been a volunteer.

While working with the private non-profit institution of aid to the burned child COANIQUEM I learned divers things about the Chilean health system, things that came together with my own experiences and ended up involving me in the subject.

There are two experiences that I consider, help me fully understand the problem we are facing, one of them is related to my mother, my mom is a person who has always dealt with some illnesses and later this year, some exam results showed that my mom very possibly had cancer, that is why the same doctor that determined that sent her to have another exam, therefore my mom together with mine and my dad’s help spent a long time looking for a medical appointment, the most soon as possible in any clinic and with any professional. At that moment of hysteria we spent an entire afternoon looking for an appointment, filling out and filling out information, on every possible website.

The other experience occurred during the pandemic, in fact more than once; when mandatory vaccination began in Chile, to meet with the vaccination schedule established by the government we had to quickly find where to get vaccinated, the problem arose for me and my younger sister, who needed to attend with an adult, while both of our parents have complicated schedules due to their work. Waiting in long lines at vaccination centers was not an option for the same reason, but we found the option of clinics, where you could reserve an appointment also for free. There were many times that I was on my cell phone or computer reloading the page and filling out information, reloading the page and filling out information until I found an hour for myself or my sister, it was definitely very stressful.

The experiences that I have just described explain why myself, together with my parents, represent the target audience for my project and for this exact reason is that I feel in a great position to develop it.

I started researching data, collecting numbers and amounts of people, especially related to potential users, then I started collecting information with people involved like a couple of doctors (thanks to contacts with COANIQUEM), my mom and other people also allowed me to survey them about the idea.

The last thing I have done in order to learn more about the needs of my potential users was to personally interview more than 20 people (at the moment), whom I asked about the problem and this possible solution, thanks to this I have more specific ideas about the campaign that should come along with the launch of the project.