It’s easy to compensate for consistent lateness. But the simulation confirmed that the type of lateness matters. Some patients or physicians run late, and waiting occurs. Late is bad, unpredictable is worseĪlas, reality rarely runs so smoothly. Patients would show up on time and walk right in. If treatments always take 10 minutes, then schedule one patient every 10 minutes. Of course, scheduling would be easy if no one ever ran late: Simply spread out the appointments evenly across the day. It can compare different schedules to see what works best. The simulation estimates waiting by patients and physicians.
AVERAGE TIME DOCTOR SPENDS WITH PATIENT SOFTWARE
The next step was to load the data into computer software that simulates patient flow through a clinic. Most late starts occurred because physicians were not yet available. One third began early, and the rest were on time. In those samples, about half of appointments started later than scheduled. As well, clinic staff completed surveys about their experiences. The two studies together collected that data for 664 patients. Another involved patients arriving earlier or later than planned.Įach study began by recording patient arrival, waiting and treatment times at several clinics. One study examined the impact of emergencies interrupting the physicians. Research at our university aims to improve appointment scheduling by better balancing these competing goals under various conditions. But they should also try to minimize patients’ in-office waiting. Or it might merely be when they want you to begin standing by in the waiting room.Īppointment schedules aim to maximize physician productivity in order to avoid wasting valuable health care resources. So your appointment time might be the moment your physician really expects to start seeing you. They do this to ensure physicians don’t run out of work. But sometimes clinics purposely schedule appointments before physicians expect to be ready.
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