Kuujjuaq hospital revamps system to book appointments

Kuujjuaq’s hospital is creating more options for people to book appointments.

Dr. Nathalie Boulanger, the hospital’s professional services director, has been working on the project for the past year and a half. Now, a new medical appointment centre opens Monday.

There will be four ways for people in Kuujjuaq to schedule appointments or ask questions — email, Facebook messenger, over the phone or in person.

All four options will have people at the end of the line answering inquiries between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

After finding a budget, hiring new staff and training them on the software, Boulanger said the team is ready to “press on the button and we go.”

“We are not in the nineties anymore, where the only way of communicating with someone was to be in front of them, or by phone,” she said.

The medical appointment system is a first for Nunavik, according to Boulanger.

Previously, it was difficult for people to make appointments because there wasn’t always someone there to answer the phone.

“People call us to complain, and they are right to do so,” Boulanger said. “I want this to become smooth, because right now nothing is smooth.”

The phone number is a no-fee line, which helps with Boulanger’s goal to extend parts of the service into other communities under the Ungava Tulattavik Health Centre.

Nurses in many cases have to take on administrative roles on top of their jobs providing health care in Nunavik’s smaller communities. For example, when dentists visit, nurses take care of scheduling their appointments, acting as secretaries.

The rest of Quebec uses a medical-booking system called CliqSanté, which offers a visual representation of available time slots.

Boulanger said Ungava Tulattavik Health Centre files are not computerized yet, which makes it impossible to implement CliqSanté into Nunavik’s appointment system.

Still, she indicated it wouldn’t be impossible to eventually offer a platform like this in the region.

“To start the project, I wanted to make sure that the system is robust, concentrating on scheduling appointments with people first,” she said.

Starting May 13, the phone number to book appointments is 1-833-955-0141, the email is rdv.uthc.appt@ssss.gouv.qc.ca and the Facebook page is facebook.com/rdv.uthc.appt.