Designing appointment scheduling systems for ambulatory care services

Abstract

The current climate in the health care industry demands efficiency and patient satisfaction in medical care delivery. These two demands intersect in scheduling of ambulatory care visits. This paper uses patient and doctor-related measures to assess ambulatory care performance and investigates the interactions among appointment system elements and patient panel characteristics. Analysis methodology involves simulation modeling of clinic sessions where empirical data forms the basis of model design and assumptions. Results indicate that patient sequencing has a greater effect on ambulatory care performance than the choice of an appointment rule, and that panel characteristics such as walk-ins, no-shows, punctuality and overall session volume, influence the effectiveness of appointment systems.

Discrete event simulation for performance modelling in health care: a review of the literature

“…An extensive review of literature in this specific area is given by Cayirli and Veral (2003). The same authors used simulation to evaluate the performance of different appointment systems (Cayirli et al (2006)). Their generic simulation is designed to test a fictional outpatient clinic with alternative appointment systems.…”

Task scheduling in long-term care facilities: A client-centered approach

“…A review of appointment scheduling literature is given by Cayirli and Veral (2003). Cayirli et al (2006) evaluate different appointment rules for two classes of clients in a simulation study, Kaandorp and Koole (2007) derive appointment schedules with a local search approach, Begen and Queyranne (2011) calculate optimal start times for a fixed sequence of tasks on a discrete time axis, and Erdogan and Denton (2013) consider a dynamic appointment scheduling problem, where demand occurs throughout the workday. The main difference to the task scheduling problem discussed in this paper is that, in appointment scheduling, the clients cannot choose their preferred start times freely.…”

Simulation Analysis for a Partial Appointment System of Outpatients in a Private Clinic

“…이 논문은 의료시스템의 각 종 환경변수와 성과척도에 따라 기존의 예약시스템에 대 한 연구결과들을 분류하고 기존에 발표된 예약 규칙들을 소개하고 있다. Cayirli et al [7] 은 7 가지 예약자 배정 규 칙을 시뮬레이션을 통해 비교 분석하고 있다. Wang [14] 은 Dome pattern의 예약 규칙을 제안하고 서비스시간의 변 동계수(CV)가 클수록 최적 예약 구간은 작아진다고 보고 하였다.…”