IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v258y2017i1p3-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Outpatient appointment systems in healthcare: A review of optimization studies

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmadi-Javid, Amir
  • Jalali, Zahra
  • Klassen, Kenneth J

Abstract

Outpatient appointment scheduling problems have recently gained increasing attention. This paper provides a comprehensive review of recent analytical and numerical optimization studies that present decision-support tools for designing and planning outpatient appointment systems (OASs). A structure for organizing the recent literature according to various criteria is provided, including a framework that classifies decisions at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. The OAS literature is evaluated from four perspectives: problem settings, environmental factors, modeling approaches, and solution methods. In addition, research gaps and areas of opportunity for future research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmadi-Javid, Amir & Jalali, Zahra & Klassen, Kenneth J, 2017. "Outpatient appointment systems in healthcare: A review of optimization studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(1), pages 3-34.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:258:y:2017:i:1:p:3-34
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.06.064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221716305239
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.06.064?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Turkcan, Ayten & Zeng, Bo & Muthuraman, Kumar & Lawley, Mark, 2011. "Sequential clinical scheduling with service criteria," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(3), pages 780-795, November.
    2. Qingxia Kong & Chung-Yee Lee & Chung-Piaw Teo & Zhichao Zheng, 2013. "Scheduling Arrivals to a Stochastic Service Delivery System Using Copositive Cones," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 711-726, June.
    3. Kuiper, Alex & Mandjes, Michel, 2015. "Appointment scheduling in tandem-type service systems," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 57(PB), pages 145-156.
    4. A. Krishnamoorthy & P. Pramod & S. Chakravarthy, 2014. "Queues with interruptions: a survey," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 22(1), pages 290-320, April.
    5. Linda Green, 2006. "Queueing Analysis in Healthcare," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Randolph W. Hall (ed.), Patient Flow: Reducing Delay in Healthcare Delivery, chapter 0, pages 281-307, Springer.
    6. Mehmet A. Begen & Maurice Queyranne, 2011. "Appointment Scheduling with Discrete Random Durations," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 36(2), pages 240-257, May.
    7. Xiuli Qu & Yidong Peng & Nan Kong & Jing Shi, 2013. "A two-phase approach to scheduling multi-category outpatient appointments – A case study of a women’s clinic," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 197-216, September.
    8. Michele Samorani & Subhamoy Ganguly, 2016. "Optimal Sequencing of Unpunctual Patients in High-Service-Level Clinics," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 25(2), pages 330-346, February.
    9. Sangdo (Sam) Choi & Amarnath (Andy) Banerjee, 2016. "Comparison of a branch-and-bound heuristic, a newsvendor-based heuristic and periodic Bailey rules for outpatients appointment scheduling systems," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 67(4), pages 576-592, April.
    10. Geng, Na & Xie, Xiaolan, 2012. "Optimizing contracted resource capacity with two advance cancelation modes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(3), pages 501-512.
    11. Kemper, Benjamin & Klaassen, Chris A.J. & Mandjes, Michel, 2014. "Optimized appointment scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 239(1), pages 243-255.
    12. Sujin Kim & Raghu Pasupathy & Shane G. Henderson, 2015. "A Guide to Sample Average Approximation," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Michael C Fu (ed.), Handbook of Simulation Optimization, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 207-243, Springer.
    13. Nan Liu, 2016. "Optimal Choice for Appointment Scheduling Window under Patient No-Show Behavior," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 25(1), pages 128-142, January.
    14. Santanu Chakraborty & Kumar Muthuraman & Mark Lawley, 2010. "Sequential clinical scheduling with patient no-shows and general service time distributions," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(5), pages 354-366.
    15. Jonathan Patrick & Martin L. Puterman & Maurice Queyranne, 2008. "Dynamic Multipriority Patient Scheduling for a Diagnostic Resource," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(6), pages 1507-1525, December.
    16. Jacob Feldman & Nan Liu & Huseyin Topaloglu & Serhan Ziya, 2014. "Appointment Scheduling Under Patient Preference and No-Show Behavior," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 794-811, August.
    17. Wen-Ya Wang & Diwakar Gupta, 2011. "Adaptive Appointment Systems with Patient Preferences," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 373-389, July.
    18. Shoshana Hahn-Goldberg & Michael Carter & J. Beck & Maureen Trudeau & Philomena Sousa & Kathy Beattie, 2014. "Dynamic optimization of chemotherapy outpatient scheduling with uncertainty," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 379-392, December.
    19. Vink, Wouter & Kuiper, Alex & Kemper, Benjamin & Bhulai, Sandjai, 2015. "Optimal appointment scheduling in continuous time: The lag order approximation method," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(1), pages 213-219.
    20. Y Huang & P Zuniga, 2012. "Dynamic overbooking scheduling system to improve patient access," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 63(6), pages 810-820, June.
    21. Qu, Xiuli & Peng, Yidong & Shi, Jing & LaGanga, Linda, 2015. "An MDP model for walk-in patient admission management in primary care clinics," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 303-320.
    22. Peter Hulshof & Richard Boucherie & Erwin Hans & Johann Hurink, 2013. "Tactical resource allocation and elective patient admission planning in care processes," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 152-166, June.
    23. S. Creemers & J. Beliën & M. Lambrecht, 2012. "The optimal allocation of server time slots over different classes of customers," Post-Print hal-00800190, HAL.
    24. Brailsford, Sally & Vissers, Jan, 2011. "OR in healthcare: A European perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 212(2), pages 223-234, July.
    25. Hans-Jörg Schütz & Rainer Kolisch, 2013. "Capacity allocation for demand of different customer-product-combinations with cancellations, no-shows, and overbooking when there is a sequential delivery of service," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 206(1), pages 401-423, July.
    26. Jonathan Patrick, 2012. "A Markov decision model for determining optimal outpatient scheduling," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 91-102, June.
    27. Paul Griffin, 2007. "The Use of Classroom Games in Management Science and Operations Research," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 8(1), pages 1-2, September.
    28. Conforti, D. & Guerriero, F. & Guido, R., 2010. "Non-block scheduling with priority for radiotherapy treatments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(1), pages 289-296, February.
    29. Chongjun Yan & Jiafu Tang & Bowen Jiang & Richard Y.K. Fung, 2015. "Sequential appointment scheduling considering patient choice and service fairness," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(24), pages 7376-7395, December.
    30. Refael Hassin & Sharon Mendel, 2008. "Scheduling Arrivals to Queues: A Single-Server Model with No-Shows," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 565-572, March.
    31. Linda V. Green & Sergei Savin, 2008. "Reducing Delays for Medical Appointments: A Queueing Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(6), pages 1526-1538, December.
    32. Guido Kaandorp & Ger Koole, 2007. "Optimal outpatient appointment scheduling," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 217-229, September.
    33. Eduardo Pérez & Lewis Ntaimo & César Malavé & Carla Bailey & Peter McCormack, 2013. "Stochastic online appointment scheduling of multi-step sequential procedures in nuclear medicine," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 281-299, December.
    34. Asli Ozen & Hari Balasubramanian, 2013. "The impact of case mix on timely access to appointments in a primary care group practice," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 101-118, June.
    35. Mehmet A. Begen & Retsef Levi & Maurice Queyranne, 2012. "Technical Note---A Sampling-Based Approach to Appointment Scheduling," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 675-681, June.
    36. Rachel R. Chen & Lawrence W. Robinson, 2014. "Sequencing and Scheduling Appointments with Potential Call-In Patients," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 23(9), pages 1522-1538, September.
    37. Kong, Qingxia & Lee, Chung-Yee & Teo, Chung-Piaw & Zheng, Zhichao, 2016. "Appointment sequencing: Why the Smallest-Variance-First rule may not be optimal," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(3), pages 809-821.
    38. Hari Balasubramanian & Sebastian Biehl & Longjie Dai & Ana Muriel, 2014. "Dynamic allocation of same-day requests in multi-physician primary care practices in the presence of prescheduled appointments," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 31-48, March.
    39. Gad Allon & Awi Federgruen, 2007. "Competition in Service Industries," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(1), pages 37-55, February.
    40. Schütz, Hans-Jörg & Kolisch, Rainer, 2012. "Approximate dynamic programming for capacity allocation in the service industry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 218(1), pages 239-250.
    41. Bo Zeng & Ayten Turkcan & Ji Lin & Mark Lawley, 2010. "Clinic scheduling models with overbooking for patients with heterogeneous no-show probabilities," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 121-144, July.
    42. Qu, Xiuli & Rardin, Ronald L. & Williams, Julie Ann S. & Willis, Deanna R., 2007. "Matching daily healthcare provider capacity to demand in advanced access scheduling systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 183(2), pages 812-826, December.
    43. Ho-Yin Mak & Ying Rong & Jiawei Zhang, 2014. "Sequencing Appointments for Service Systems Using Inventory Approximations," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 251-262, May.
    44. Antoine Sauré & Martin L. Puterman, 2014. "The Appointment Scheduling Game," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 14(2), pages 73-85, February.
    45. Tsai, Pei-Fang Jennifer & Teng, Guei-Yu, 2014. "A stochastic appointment scheduling system on multiple resources with dynamic call-in sequence and patient no-shows for an outpatient clinic," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 239(2), pages 427-436.
    46. Sauré, Antoine & Patrick, Jonathan & Tyldesley, Scott & Puterman, Martin L., 2012. "Dynamic multi-appointment patient scheduling for radiation therapy," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 223(2), pages 573-584.
    47. Vandaele, Nico & Van Nieuwenhuyse, Inneke & Cupers, Sascha, 2003. "Optimal grouping for a nuclear magnetic resonance scanner by means of an open queueing model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(1), pages 181-192, November.
    48. Nan Liu & Serhan Ziya, 2014. "Panel Size and Overbooking Decisions for Appointment-Based Services under Patient No-Shows," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 23(12), pages 2209-2223, December.
    49. Creemers, Stefan & Beliën, Jeroen & Lambrecht, Marc, 2012. "The optimal allocation of server time slots over different classes of patients," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 219(3), pages 508-521.
    50. Lawrence W. Robinson & Rachel R. Chen, 2010. "A Comparison of Traditional and Open-Access Policies for Appointment Scheduling," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 330-346, June.
    51. S. Ayca Erdogan & Brian Denton, 2013. "Dynamic Appointment Scheduling of a Stochastic Server with Uncertain Demand," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 25(1), pages 116-132, February.
    52. Linda V. Green & Sergei Savin & Ben Wang, 2006. "Managing Patient Service in a Diagnostic Medical Facility," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 11-25, February.
    53. Diwakar Gupta & Lei Wang, 2008. "Revenue Management for a Primary-Care Clinic in the Presence of Patient Choice," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(3), pages 576-592, June.
    54. Biao Yuan & Ran Liu & Zhibin Jiang, 2015. "A branch-and-price algorithm for the home health care scheduling and routing problem with stochastic service times and skill requirements," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(24), pages 7450-7464, December.
    55. Samorani, Michele & LaGanga, Linda R., 2015. "Outpatient appointment scheduling given individual day-dependent no-show predictions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(1), pages 245-257.
    56. Woonghee Tim Huh & Nan Liu & Van-Anh Truong, 2013. "Multiresource Allocation Scheduling in Dynamic Environments," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 280-291, May.
    57. Riise, Atle & Mannino, Carlo & Lamorgese, Leonardo, 2016. "Recursive logic-based Benders’ decomposition for multi-mode outpatient scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(3), pages 719-728.
    58. Camilo Mancilla & Robert Storer, 2012. "A sample average approximation approach to stochastic appointment sequencing and scheduling," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(8), pages 655-670.
    59. Yasin Gocgun & Martin Puterman, 2014. "Dynamic scheduling with due dates and time windows: an application to chemotherapy patient appointment booking," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 60-76, March.
    60. Cardoen, Brecht & Demeulemeester, Erik & Beliën, Jeroen, 2010. "Operating room planning and scheduling: A literature review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(3), pages 921-932, March.
    61. J Patrick & M L Puterman, 2007. "Improving resource utilization for diagnostic services through flexible inpatient scheduling: A method for improving resource utilization," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(2), pages 235-245, February.
    62. Alexander Erdelyi & Huseyin Topaloglu, 2009. "Computing protection level policies for dynamic capacity allocation problems by using stochastic approximation methods," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(6), pages 498-510.
    63. Jianzhe Luo & Vidyadhar G. Kulkarni & Serhan Ziya, 2012. "Appointment Scheduling Under Patient No-Shows and Service Interruptions," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 670-684, October.
    64. Saremi, Alireza & Jula, Payman & ElMekkawy, Tarek & Wang, G. Gary, 2013. "Appointment scheduling of outpatient surgical services in a multistage operating room department," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 646-658.
    65. Thu Nguyen & Appa Sivakumar & Stephen Graves, 2015. "A network flow approach for tactical resource planning in outpatient clinics," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 124-136, June.
    66. Thomas Rohleder & Peter Lewkonia & Diane Bischak & Paul Duffy & Rosa Hendijani, 2011. "Using simulation modeling to improve patient flow at an outpatient orthopedic clinic," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 135-145, June.
    67. Nan Liu & Serhan Ziya & Vidyadhar G. Kulkarni, 2010. "Dynamic Scheduling of Outpatient Appointments Under Patient No-Shows and Cancellations," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 347-364, September.
    68. VANDAELE, Nico & AN NIEUWENHUYSE, Inneke & CUPERS, Sascha, 2003. "Optimal grouping for a nuclear magnetic resonance scanner by means of an open queueing model," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1813, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    69. Van-Anh Truong, 2015. "Optimal Advance Scheduling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(7), pages 1584-1597, July.
    70. Francesca Guerriero & Rosita Guido, 2011. "Operational research in the management of the operating theatre: a survey," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 89-114, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paola Cappanera & Filippo Visintin & Carlo Banditori & Daniele Feo, 2019. "Evaluating the long-term effects of appointment scheduling policies in a magnetic resonance imaging setting," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 212-254, March.
    2. Christos Zacharias & Tallys Yunes, 2020. "Multimodularity in the Stochastic Appointment Scheduling Problem with Discrete Arrival Epochs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 744-763, February.
    3. Van-Anh Truong, 2015. "Optimal Advance Scheduling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(7), pages 1584-1597, July.
    4. Dogru, Ali K. & Melouk, Sharif H., 2019. "Adaptive appointment scheduling for patient-centered medical homes," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 166-181.
    5. Miao Bai & Bjorn Berg & Esra Sisikoglu Sir & Mustafa Y. Sir, 2023. "Partially partitioned templating strategies for outpatient specialty practices," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(1), pages 301-318, January.
    6. Li Luo & Ying Zhou & Bernard T. Han & Jialing Li, 2019. "An optimization model to determine appointment scheduling window for an outpatient clinic with patient no-shows," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 68-84, March.
    7. Christos Zacharias & Michael Pinedo, 2017. "Managing Customer Arrivals in Service Systems with Multiple Identical Servers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 639-656, October.
    8. Gang Du & Xinyue Li & Hui Hu & Xiaoling Ouyang, 2018. "Optimizing Daily Service Scheduling for Medical Diagnostic Equipment Considering Patient Satisfaction and Hospital Revenue," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-23, September.
    9. Nguyen, Thu Ba T. & Sivakumar, Appa Iyer & Graves, Stephen C., 2018. "Capacity planning with demand uncertainty for outpatient clinics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(1), pages 338-348.
    10. Pan, Xingwei & Geng, Na & Xie, Xiaolan & Wen, Jing, 2020. "Managing appointments with waiting time targets and random walk-ins," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    11. De Vuyst, Stijn & Bruneel, Herwig & Fiems, Dieter, 2014. "Computationally efficient evaluation of appointment schedules in health care," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 237(3), pages 1142-1154.
    12. Jiang, Bowen & Tang, Jiafu & Yan, Chongjun, 2019. "A stochastic programming model for outpatient appointment scheduling considering unpunctuality," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 70-82.
    13. Shuwan Zhu & Wenjuan Fan & Shanlin Yang & Jun Pei & Panos M. Pardalos, 2019. "Operating room planning and surgical case scheduling: a review of literature," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 757-805, April.
    14. Seokjun Youn & H. Neil Geismar & Michael Pinedo, 2022. "Planning and scheduling in healthcare for better care coordination: Current understanding, trending topics, and future opportunities," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(12), pages 4407-4423, December.
    15. van Eekelen, Wouter, 2023. "Distributionally robust views on queues and related stochastic models," Other publications TiSEM 9b99fc05-9d68-48eb-ae8c-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Dongyang Wang & Kumar Muthuraman & Douglas Morrice, 2019. "Coordinated Patient Appointment Scheduling for a Multistation Healthcare Network," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 599-618, May.
    17. Ruiwei Jiang & Siqian Shen & Yiling Zhang, 2017. "Integer Programming Approaches for Appointment Scheduling with Random No-Shows and Service Durations," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(6), pages 1638-1656, December.
    18. Katsumi Morikawa & Katsuhiko Takahashi & Daisuke Hirotani, 2018. "Performance evaluation of candidate appointment schedules using clearing functions," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 509-518, March.
    19. Yu Fu & Amarnath Banerjee, 2021. "A Stochastic Programming Model for Service Scheduling with Uncertain Demand: an Application in Open-Access Clinic Scheduling," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 1-32, September.
    20. Liping Zhou & Na Geng & Zhibin Jiang & Shan Jiang, 2022. "Integrated Multiresource Capacity Planning and Multitype Patient Scheduling," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 129-149, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:258:y:2017:i:1:p:3-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.