OP NOW METHODOLOGY

1. What OP Now Is

OP Now is a FirstBridge Studios public utility project released as an open-source tool. It functions as a community crowd guide for outpatient hospital visits, currently focused specifically on General Hospital, Alappuzha. It is an independent civic directory designed to help visitors understand layout information and queues before travelling. It is completely independent and not associated with, endorsed by, or affiliated with eHealth Kerala, ORS, or official hospital administrations.

2. What OP Now Is Not

• Not an official hospital website: We do not publish official statements or represent medical administration.
• Not a government service: We are not affiliated with the Kerala Health Department or municipal authorities.
• Not an eHealth Kerala or ORS partner: The app does not integrate with official eHealth systems.
• Not medical advice: OP Now compiles workflow queues and does not offer clinical triage.
• Not emergency guidance: Critical cases must bypass OP pathways and proceed to casualty.
• Not doctor booking: The app does not schedule visits or reserve tokens with specific doctors.
• Not a guaranteed token system: Outpatient queue numbers are issued only by the hospital counters.
• Not Kerala-wide active coverage: Active coordinate and queue guidance is currently restricted to Alappuzha General Hospital.

3. Schedule Guidance vs. Community Signals

OP Now clearly separates department-level schedule guidance from nearby community reporting:

• Schedule & Department Information: This is compiled operational public guidance representing general opening hours, location indexes, and clinic layouts. It is compiled manually and remains static until updated.
• Community Pulse & Crowd Signals: These are anonymous crowd estimations submitted directly by visitors at the hospital. These signals are purely probabilistic guidelines, meaning they may occasionally be stale, incomplete, or incorrect.

Always verify time-sensitive or critical details directly with the hospital staff or official government portals before planning your travel.

4. Privacy and Data Minimization

The OP Now system is built to ensure absolute anonymity. It enforces a strict data minimization model:

• No Aadhaar numbers or government identifiers are ever requested or stored.
• No clinical diagnoses or symptoms are collected.
• No personal medical records or history logs are created.
• No hospital visit reasons are tracked.
• No doctor-wise tracking: Queue data is aggregated purely at the department level (e.g. general outpatient, counter).
• Waitlist Data: If you choose to register on the website waitlist, we only collect basic contact details (name, email, district, and optional device information) to coordinate closed testing. This information is kept entirely separate from KFirst systems.

5. Nearby Community Reporting & Integrity

To maintain report integrity and prevent queue manipulation, the application employs a nearby community reporting mechanism. The system may limit submissions to users near the hospital area to reduce false reports. While users outside the physical vicinity are free to read department directories and browse schedules, the submission of live crowd metrics is restricted to individuals physically present within the mapped campus boundary.