E-booking Websites in Iranian Public Clinics: A Step Toward Health Equity

Background: Scheduling doctor appointments at healthcare centers have been a managerial challenge for health systems. In recent years, many efforts have been made to implement e-booking websites in medical universities and their affiliated healthcare centers. Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze the recent situation of e-booking in the medical sciences affiliated clinics. Methods: The present study was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in 2019 in 31 provinces, universities of medical sciences, and affiliated health centers. A checklist with 11 items was used for situation analysis. Results: The results showed that just 5 out of 31 (15.15%) provinces and their affiliated universities of medical sciences lacked an e-booking system. Moreover, 85.71% of cases had an integrated e-booking portal, 67.86% had mobile-based applications for e-booking, and just 14.29% of the cases had online payment gateway that was the lowest score in all items studied. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, there is a significant growth in the situation of e-booking websites in Iran in the last two years. If this improvement continues, it can lead to equity development in healthcare services, reduction of patients’ waiting time, a decrease in waste of resources, and an increase in patients’ satisfaction.