A Stochastic Programming Model for Service Scheduling with Uncertain Demand: an Application in Open-Access Clinic Scheduling

When patients visit primary care clinics, they can be subject to long wait times due to operational inefficiencies and bottlenecks, decreasing patient satisfaction and sometimes leading to worse health outcomes. The existing literature models primary care clinics primarily as agent-based models, which are excellent at tracking individual patients and their movements in a model of a clinic. While agent-based models can detect bottlenecks, a network flow model better detects bottlenecks in the model by correlating changes in patient flow and wait times in the healthcare network. In this paper, a network flow model is constructed, where patients flow along the capacitated edges of a network while receiving treatment at the nodes. This configuration easily identifies bottlenecks by analyzing the flow in and flow out of nodes through metrics such as efficiency and patient wait times. The capacities of the edges for this model are taken from an agent-based model of a case study of a primary care clinic and sampled as random variables. Ensemble runs of the network flow model are created to account for uncertainty in the synthetic data. By changing the topology of the network flow model, bottlenecks are removed, increasing the model efficiency and decreasing patient wait times. Finally, the model is subjected to a sensitivity analysis. The focus in this work is on the method rather than the results per se.

show abstract

Improving Patient Flow in a Primary Care Clinic

Preuss

Guo

Allen

et al. 2022

Oper. Res. Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

A Stochastic Programming Model for Service Scheduling with Uncertain Demand: an Application in Open-Access Clinic Scheduling

Cited by 1 publication

References 55 publications

Improving Patient Flow in a Primary Care Clinic

Improving Patient Flow in a Primary Care Clinic

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About