Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems
This paper considers how to schedule appointments for outpatients, for a clinic that is subject to appointment lead-time targets for both new and returning patients. We develop heuristic rules, which are the exact and relaxed appointment scheduling rules, to schedule each new patient appointment (on...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer US
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107454 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5966-6032 |
| _version_ | 1811082070595731456 |
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| author | Sivakumar, Appa Iyer Nguyen, Thu Ba Thi Graves, Stephen C |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Sivakumar, Appa Iyer Nguyen, Thu Ba Thi Graves, Stephen C |
| author_sort | Sivakumar, Appa Iyer |
| collection | MIT |
| description | This paper considers how to schedule appointments for outpatients, for a clinic that is subject to appointment lead-time targets for both new and returning patients. We develop heuristic rules, which are the exact and relaxed appointment scheduling rules, to schedule each new patient appointment (only) in light of uncertainty about future arrivals. The scheduling rules entail two decisions. First, the rules need to determine whether or not a patient's request can be accepted; then, if the request is not rejected, the rules prescribe how to assign the patient to an available slot. The intent of the scheduling rules is to maximize the utilization of the planned resource (i.e., the physician staff), or equivalently to maximize the number of patients that are admitted, while maintaining the service targets on the median, the 95th percentile, and the maximum appointment lead-times. We test the proposed scheduling rules with numerical experiments using real data from the chosen clinic of Tan Tock Seng hospital in Singapore. The results show the efficiency and the efficacy of the scheduling rules, in terms of the service-target satisfaction and the resource utilization. From the sensitivity analysis, we find that the performance of the proposed scheduling rules is fairly robust to the specification of the established lead-time targets. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:57:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/107454 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:57:06Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Springer US |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1074542022-09-27T23:02:52Z Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems Sivakumar, Appa Iyer Nguyen, Thu Ba Thi Graves, Stephen C Sloan School of Management Nguyen, Thu Ba Thi Graves, Stephen C This paper considers how to schedule appointments for outpatients, for a clinic that is subject to appointment lead-time targets for both new and returning patients. We develop heuristic rules, which are the exact and relaxed appointment scheduling rules, to schedule each new patient appointment (only) in light of uncertainty about future arrivals. The scheduling rules entail two decisions. First, the rules need to determine whether or not a patient's request can be accepted; then, if the request is not rejected, the rules prescribe how to assign the patient to an available slot. The intent of the scheduling rules is to maximize the utilization of the planned resource (i.e., the physician staff), or equivalently to maximize the number of patients that are admitted, while maintaining the service targets on the median, the 95th percentile, and the maximum appointment lead-times. We test the proposed scheduling rules with numerical experiments using real data from the chosen clinic of Tan Tock Seng hospital in Singapore. The results show the efficiency and the efficacy of the scheduling rules, in terms of the service-target satisfaction and the resource utilization. From the sensitivity analysis, we find that the performance of the proposed scheduling rules is fairly robust to the specification of the established lead-time targets. 2017-03-16T22:50:34Z 2017-06-19T21:40:54Z 2016-08 2015-12 2017-02-02T15:21:17Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1386-9620 1572-9389 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107454 Nguyen, Thu-Ba T., Appa Iyer Sivakumar, and Stephen C. Graves. “Scheduling Rules to Achieve Lead-Time Targets in Outpatient Appointment Systems.” Health Care Management Science (August 8, 2016). https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5966-6032 en http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10729-016-9374-2 Health Care Management Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Springer Science+Business Media New York application/pdf Springer US Springer US |
| spellingShingle | Sivakumar, Appa Iyer Nguyen, Thu Ba Thi Graves, Stephen C Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| title | Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| title_full | Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| title_fullStr | Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| title_full_unstemmed | Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| title_short | Scheduling rules to achieve lead-time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| title_sort | scheduling rules to achieve lead time targets in outpatient appointment systems |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107454 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5966-6032 |
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