Comparison of Traditional and Open-Access Appointment Scheduling for Exponentially Distributed Service Time. Issue 3 (9th September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yan, Chongjun; Tang, Jiafu; Jiang, Bowen; Fung, Richard Y.K.
• Is Part Of: Journal of healthcare engineering. Volume 6:Issue 3(2015)
• Page Start: 345
• Page End: 376
• Publication Date: 2015-09-09
• Subjects: healthcare management -- appointment scheduling -- no-show; Hospital buildings -- Environmental engineering -- Periodicals; Medical technology -- Periodicals; Medical informatics -- Periodicals; 610.28
• DOI: 10.1260/2040-2295.6.3.345
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-2295

Abstract

Abstract : This paper compares the performance measures of traditional appointment scheduling (AS) with those of an open-access appointment scheduling (OA-AS) system with exponentially distributed service time. A queueing model is formulated for the traditional AS system with no-show probability. The OA-AS models assume that all patients who call before the session begins will show up for the appointment on time. Two types of OA-AS systems are considered: with a same-session policy and with a same-or-next-session policy. Numerical results indicate that the superiority of OA-AS systems is not as obvious as those under deterministic scenarios. The same-session system has a threshold of relative waiting cost, after which the traditional system always has higher total costs, and the same-or-next-session system is always preferable, except when the no-show probability or the weight of patients' waiting is low. It is concluded that open-access policies can be viewed as alternative approaches to mitigate the negative effects of no-show patients.