Publication: A probabilistic patient scheduling model with time variable slots
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2020
Defense date
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Hindawi
Impact
Export
Abstract
One of the current challenges faced by health centers is to reduce the number of patients who do not attend their appointments.
The existence of these patients causes the underutilization of the center’s services, which reduces their income and extends
patient’s access time. In order to reduce these negative effects, several appointment scheduling systems have been developed.
With the recent availability of electronic health records, patient scheduling systems that incorporate the patient’s no-show
prediction are being developed. However, the benefits of including a personalized individual variable time slot for each
patient in those probabilistic systems have not been yet analyzed. In this article, we propose a scheduling system based on
patients’ no-show probabilities with variable time slots and a dynamic priority allocation scheme. The system is based on the
solution of a mixed-integer programming model that aims at maximizing the expected profits of the clinic, accounting for
first and follow-up visits. We validate our findings by performing an extensive simulation study based on real data and
specific scheduling requirements provided by a Spanish hospital. The results suggest potential benefits with the
implementation of the proposed allocation system with variable slot times. In particular, the proposed model increases the
annual cumulated profit in more than 50% while decreasing the waiting list and waiting times by 30% and 50%, respectively,
with respect to the actual appointment scheduling system.
Description
Keywords
Bibliographic citation
Carreras-García, D., Delgado-Gómez, D., Baca-García, E., & Artés-Rodriguez, A. (2020). A Probabilistic Patient Scheduling Model with Time Variable Slots. Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine, 2020, pp. 1-10