Altering the environment to improve appointment system performance
Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
7-2019
Abstract
Current research on clinicperformance is focused primarily on appointment scheduling rather than shapingthe clinical environments. The goal of this study is to investigate the impactof environmental factors on the total cost performance of a clinic, measured asa weighted sum of patients’ wait times and physician’s idle time and overtime.The environmental factors investigated include the variability of servicetimes, the probabilities of no-shows and walk-ins, the number of appointmentsper session and the cost ratio of physician’s time to patients’ time. The effectsof these factors are evaluated using a near-optimal rule that already adjuststhe patients’ appointment times to minimize the negative effects of thesefactors, so that their trueeffects on total cost performance can be isolated. As a result, this studyprovides useful insights tohealthcare practitioners in prioritizing their efforts in managing the different sources of variability to further improve the clinic performancebeyond the use of an optimal or near-optimal appointment rule. Additionalexperiments are conducted on the effects of patient and physicianunpunctuality, which have been studied to a lesser extent in priorliterature.
Keywords
Healthcare scheduling, Appointment systems, Environmental assessment, Simulation
Discipline
Business Administration, Management, and Operations
Research Areas
Operations Management
Publication
Service Science
Volume
11
Issue
2
First Page
138
Last Page
154
ISSN
2164-3970
Identifier
10.1287/serv.2019.0239
Publisher
INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences)
Citation
CAYIRLI, Tugba and YANG, Kum Khiong.
Altering the environment to improve appointment system performance. (2019). Service Science. 11, (2), 138-154.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6253
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1287/serv.2019.0239