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To pool or not to pool in hospitals: a theoretical and practical comparison for a radiotherapy outpatient department

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  • Paul Joustra
  • Erik Sluis
  • Nico Dijk

Abstract

This paper examines whether urgent and regular patients waiting for a consultation at a radiotherapy outpatient department should be pooled or not. Both queuing theory and discrete event simulation were applied to a realistic case study. The theoretical approach shows that pooling is not always beneficial with regard to the waiting times of urgent patients. Furthermore, the practical approach indicates that the separation of queues may require less capacity to meet the waiting time performance target for urgent as well as regular patients. The results seem to be of general interest for hospitals. Copyright The Author(s) 2010

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Joustra & Erik Sluis & Nico Dijk, 2010. "To pool or not to pool in hospitals: a theoretical and practical comparison for a radiotherapy outpatient department," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 77-89, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:178:y:2010:i:1:p:77-89:10.1007/s10479-009-0559-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-009-0559-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ward Whitt, 1999. "Partitioning Customers into Service Groups," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(11), pages 1579-1592, November.
    2. Ward Whitt, 1992. "Understanding the Efficiency of Multi-Server Service Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 708-723, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Song, Lina & Saghafian, Soroush, 2019. "Do Hospital Closures Improve the Efficiency and Quality of Other Hospitals?," Working Paper Series rwp19-006, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Michael Freeman & Nicos Savva & Stefan Scholtes, 2021. "Economies of Scale and Scope in Hospitals: An Empirical Study of Volume Spillovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 673-697, February.
    3. Zhou, Liping & Geng, Na & Jiang, Zhibin & Wang, Xiuxian, 2017. "Combining revenue and equity in capacity allocation of imaging facilities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 619-628.
    4. Masha Shunko & Julie Niederhoff & Yaroslav Rosokha, 2018. "Humans Are Not Machines: The Behavioral Impact of Queueing Design on Service Time," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 453-473, January.
    5. Jin Kyung Kwak, 2023. "Analysis of the Waiting Time in Clinic Registration of Patients with Appointments and Random Walk-Ins," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-9, February.
    6. Timothy C. Y. Chan & Daniel Letourneau & Benjamin G. Potter, 2022. "Sparse flexible design: a machine learning approach," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 1066-1116, December.
    7. Vahab Vahdat & Jacqueline Griffin & James E. Stahl, 2018. "Decreasing patient length of stay via new flexible exam room allocation policies in ambulatory care clinics," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 492-516, December.
    8. Gerald Oeser & Pietro Romano, 2021. "Exploring risk pooling in hospitals to reduce demand and lead time uncertainty," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 78-94, June.
    9. Saied Samiedaluie & Vedat Verter, 2019. "The impact of specialization of hospitals on patient access to care; a queuing analysis with an application to a neurological hospital," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 709-726, December.
    10. Mor Armony & Guillaume Roels & Hummy Song, 2021. "Pooling Queues with Strategic Servers: The Effects of Customer Ownership," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 13-29, January.
    11. Mandar Dabhilkar & Anna Svarts, 2019. "From general to specialty hospitals: operationalising focus in healthcare operations," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 94-111, June.
    12. David Dreyfus & Anand Nair & Srinivas Talluri, 2020. "The Impact of Chain Organization Size on Efficiency and Quality of Affiliated Facilities—Implications for Multi‐Unit Organizational Forms," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(7), pages 1605-1623, July.

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