BENGALURU: Appointment system in clinics, where doctors have high patient walk-ins, usually sees a lot of these patients who end up waiting for a long time. Here is a mobile application ‘Sminq’ which provides real-time appointments and solves the problem of patients and doctors alike.
Sminq – doctor appointments helps patients get appointments online with their preferred doctors. It also sends SMS alerts in real time, so that patients can know how long to wait. Along with these features, the application also allows users to pay the doctors their consultation fee. The patients can also upload photos of prescription and set reminders for future appointments. One can even cancel and reschedule their appointments.
Patients who use Sminq on an average save 75 minutes of waiting time compared to those who walk in directly. The app is being used by 55,000 patients for consultation of doctors every month and the number of doctors tied up with it is at 145. The users can download the app free from Google play store or Apple app store and complete the registration process. Once the doctor is selected, the app shows the live status of patients in the queue to that particular doctor. After the selection of a particular slot, an SMS is sent with a token number.
CEO, Shachin Bharadwaj, says: “During my wife’s pregnancy we had to wait for long hours because of queues even after taking appointment. The problem was similar when we went out for shopping - we were not sure if products will be available in stock, what the parking situation would be, or what is the rush at the store. These problems made me think that there is no real-time information of places around us.”
“Once the user has the app they can directly book through it and don’t need to call the clinic.
An approximate time is shown, which helps the users to plan their visits accordingly. Even the application helps the users to check before we go outside. In future, we have plans to build more features for the doctors to enable them to remotely connect with patients, and have a daily calendar to plan their day. We have even plans to tie up with other firms and provide cab services to reach the clinics and manage medicine delivery at our doorsteps,” he adds.
Sharad Pathak, father of a six-year-old, who has benefited by using the app says: “Earlier, we often ended up seeing the doctor two or three hours later. Now using Sminq we can book an appointment on the app sitting at home. We can make the payments online and get live updates on the status of the appointment. We can even make payments online.”
WHAT LEAD TO SMINQ?
A long wait to get an appointment with a doctor for regular checkups for his pregnant wife, was the trigger to launch a mobile application with real-time information for Shachin Bharadwaj. He immediately discussed the idea with co-founders Santhosh Nagarajan, Sheldon D’Souza in 2015.
here in Bengaluru
The team members who are operating in Pune, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Nashik are soon extending their services to Bengaluru and other major cities in the South. Sminq-world places.livenow can be used by users in Bengaluru. The application helps to get the real-time information of local places, traffic, live concerts. Soon, Sminq - doctor appointments will also be added to the service.