Reducing Delays for Medical Appointments: A Queueing Approach
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Green, Linda V.; Savin, Sergei
署名单位：
Columbia University
刊物名称：
OPERATIONS RESEARCH
ISSN/ISSBN：
0030-364X
DOI：
10.1287/opre.1080.0575
发表日期：
2008
页码：
1526-1538
关键词：
摘要：
Many primary care offices and other medical practices regularly experience long backlogs for appointments. These backlogs are exacerbated by a significant level of last-minute cancellations or no-shows, which have the effect of wasting capacity. In this paper, we conceptualize such an appointment system as a single-server queueing system in which customers who are about to enter service have a state-dependent probability of not being served and may rejoin the queue. We derive stationary distributions of the queue size, assuming both deterministic as well as exponential service times, and compare the performance metrics to the results of a simulation of the appointment system. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of the queueing models in providing guidance on identifying patient panel sizes for medical practices that are trying to implement a policy of advanced access.