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Dynamic Scheduling of Outpatient Appointments Under Patient No-Shows and Cancellations

Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
nl2320{at}columbia.edu
ziya{at}email.unc.edu
vkulkarn{at}email.unc.edu

This paper develops a framework and proposes heuristic dynamic policies for scheduling patient appointments, taking into account the fact that patients may cancel or not show up for their appointments. In a simulation study that considers a model clinic, which is created using data obtained from an actual clinic, we find that the heuristics proposed outperform all the other benchmark policies, particularly when the patient load is high compared with the regular capacity. Supporting earlier findings in the literature, we find that the open access policy, a recently proposed popular scheduling paradigm that calls for "meeting today's demand today," can be a reasonable choice when the patient load is relatively low.

Key Words: service operations; health-care management; stochastic methods
History: Received: September 29, 2008; accepted: June 10, 2009.