Many people know that the appointment is generally required before seeing a doctor in foreign countries. Well then in Beijing, how far is the appointment away from us?
　　
Beijing always has the appointment system, but it is not common enough. Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health requires hospitals ranked with level 3 should execute the appointment register for all the reexamination patients, enlarge the coverage of the appointment register, and provide convenience for the patients. At present, depending on their own conditions, hospitals have developed various appointment register services, such as telephone appointment, online appointment, and transfer appointment, etc.

Telephone appointment and online appointment are to conduct the appointment register through telephone or the internet. Many hospitals have opened the hotlines and online appointment services for the register. For example, Tongren Hospital has launched the appointment

diagnosis in divided period, and the patients can come to the hospital depending on the appointment time. The 9 a.m. appointment register taken in the hospital 20 minutes in advance can basically guarantee that the patients can see the doctor in time. Transfer appointment is to make the medical service appointment in big hospitals by the community hospital. For example, Peking University Peoples Hospital sent the outpatient service to two supporting community hospitals: Beijing Zhanlanlu Hospital and Deshengmen Hospital.. Depending on the status of illness, the community hospitals will provide the appointments for patients in these two community hospitals with outpatient service, hospitalization or examinations in Peking University Peoples Hospital by a specialized network information platform.

Although the appointment register has been opened, it is usually unavailable. The lack of numbers of expert appointment source is the main factor. Aiming at this problem, we require all the hospitals ranked with level 3 enlarge the proportion of appointment registers. For hospitals with more than 50% patients from outside Beijing, the appointment numbers should not be less than 30%. For hospitals with less than 30% patients from outside Beijing, the appointment numbers should not be less than 50%. Such as Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, over 90% of the outpatient numbers can be appointed by telephone. It can not only improve the successful rate of the appointment register, but gives attention to the fairness, making the patients from outside Beijing and those can not use appointment register can have the registration in the window.

In addition, we have adopted various measures to solve the problems of the insufficient numbers of expert appointment. For example, we have put forward clear requirement on the visiting time of the chief physicians, co-chief physicians of all hospitals ranked with level 3. No less than two half days for the chief physicians, no less than three half days for the surgical co-chief physicians, and no less than four half days for the medical co-chief physicians. The experts are required to visit the patients in different mornings and afternoons; all hospitals ranked with level 3 must set weekend outpatient service, organize doctors titled above attending physicians, invite retired experts to conduct outpatient; all hospitals should actively set facile outpatient services to solve the medical requirements such as the regular medicine, reexamination of the patients with chronic illness and the physical examination and consultation of common patients. They should also extract the patients who do not need the diagnosis in common or expert outpatient department.
  
Nowadays, the Municipal Bureau of Health has brought these requirements into the detailed evaluation regulations and will regularly examine the practices in the hospital. We hope that the problem of difficult medical services will be solved on some degree by the development of appointment register service.

In fact, not all the diseases need experts. It is more convenient for the common and frequent diseases to be treated in the near community health service organization. When the transfer diagnosis is needed, the community doctor will transfer the diagnosis to the big hospital. When the patient goes to the big hospital for the first time, it is better to register common appointment first. After necessary laboratory and physical examinations are finished and the report has come out, they can go to register the expert appointment. It also relieves the problem of difficult expert appointment register.