Neshandra G

Quro : Real-Time Digital Queue Management System

Most neighborhood clinics still rely on paper tokens and verbal announcements. Patients often wait 2–3 hours without knowing their queue position or expected wait time, while receptionists repeatedly answer the same questions and manually manage patient flow. This creates frustration, inefficiency, and poor visibility for both patients and staff. The goal was to build a real-time digital queue system that provides live tracking, accurate wait estimates, and instant updates across reception, waiting-room displays, and patient phones. Process I analyzed queue management workflows in small outpatient clinics and identified three key challenges: poor patient visibility, repetitive receptionist workload, and disconnected communication across clinic systems. Based on these findings, I designed a unified three-interface solution. After evaluating a polling-based approach, I transitioned to Socket.io for real-time synchronization. Reliability was enhanced through REST fallback polling, MongoDB recovery, emergency prioritization, and no-show handling. Iterative improvements focused on faster registration, accurate wait-time estimation, and improved accessibility through QR access, multilingual support, voice guidance, and an AI-powered assistant. Results Quro achieved its core goals with under 10-second patient registration and sub-second queue synchronization across reception, waiting-room displays, and patient phones. Wait times are calculated from real consultation data, improving accuracy throughout the day. The platform supports 6 Indian languages, QR-based access, AI-assisted queries, and automatic session recovery. Testing confirmed reliable handling of emergencies, no-shows, and concurrent registrations. Planned enhancements include SMS notifications, appointment scheduling, analytics, and real-world clinic deployment. Reflection Building Quro showed me that creating a successful product involves more than solving the technical challenge. I would place greater emphasis on gathering feedback from clinic staff and patients earlier to refine workflows and improve accessibility. I would also add SMS and WhatsApp notifications, enhance wait-time prediction, and expand the platform with appointment scheduling, doctor-facing tools, and analytics to create a more complete clinic management solution.