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OUTPATIENT SCHEDULING IN HEALTH CARE: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Author(s) -
CAYIRLI TUGBA,
VERAL EMRE
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2003.tb00218.x
Subject(s) - computer science , scheduling (production processes) , health care , management science , operations research , operations management , economics , engineering , economic growth
This paper provides a comprehensive survey of research on appointment scheduling in outpatient services. Effective scheduling systems have the goal of matching demand with capacity so that resources are better utilized and patient waiting times are minimized. Our goal is to present general problem formulation and modeling considerations, and to provide taxonomy of methodologies used in previous literature. Current literature fails to develop generally applicable guidelines to design appointment systems, as most studies have suggested highly situation‐specific solutions. We identify future research directions that provide opportunities to expand existing knowledge and close the gap between theory and practice.