Analysis of the Waiting Time in Clinic Registration of Patients with Appointments and Random Walk-Ins
- 주제(키워드) appointments , clinic registration , healthcare , pooling , queues with different priorities , waiting of patients , walk-in
- 등재 SCIE, SSCI, SCOPUS
- 발행기관 MDPI
- 발행년도 2023
- 총서유형 Journal
- URI http://www.dcollection.net/handler/ewha/000000203956
- 본문언어 영어
- Published As https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032635
초록/요약
Healthcare institutions generally use an appointment system. However, patients often need to receive medical services unexpectedly. If they visit a clinic without an appointment, they may have to wait for a long time, as their priority is low. In this study, we investigated whether the clinic registration system can be improved by separating the queues and resources for different types of patients. From our simulation results, we found that under a certain setup, the separation policy does not effectively reduce the walk-ins’ waiting time, nor improve the service. The study gives valuable managerial insights into the factors affecting patients’ waiting times. As the number of random walk-ins is relatively higher, the service times are longer, and the no-show rate of appointments is lower, separation may reduce the waiting time of walk-in patients. © 2023 by the author.
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