Booking systems for elective services: the New Zealand experience.

This article provides a brief overview of New Zealand's experience in implementing booking systems for elective services in public hospitals. It identifies the basic features of the booking systems policy and explores the rationale and objectives for these policy settings. Progress with implementation of booking systems is explored and some of the challenges and recent developments are also outlined. The authors argue that booking systems represent a major improvement on waiting lists for patients, providers, purchasers and policy-makers.