Abstract
The time a patient spends waiting to be seen by a healthcare professional is an important determinant of patient satisfaction in outpatient care. Hence, it is crucial to identify parameters that affect the waiting time and optimize it accordingly. First, statistical analysis was used to validate the effective parameters. However, no parameters were found to have significant effects with respect to the entire outpatient department or to each department. Therefore, we studied the improvement of patient waiting times by analyzing and optimizing effective parameters for each physician. Queueing theory was used to calculate the probability that patients would wait for more than 30 min for a consultation session. Using this result, we built metamodels for each physician, formulated an effective method to optimize the problem, and found a solution to minimize waiting time using a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). On average, we obtained a 30% decrease in the probability that patients would wait for a long period. This study shows the importance of customized improvement strategies for each physician.
Highlights
The most important factor in outpatient care is to provide an affordable service to a large number of patients [1]
This study aims to evaluate the parameters affecting long waiting times in outpatient departments (OPDs) based on real longitudinal data from a tertiary hospital and to optimize OPD schedules using queueing theory
Waiting time in outpatient care is an important parameter in determining the quality of care and can be a valuable tool for evaluating patient satisfaction
Summary
The most important factor in outpatient care is to provide an affordable service to a large number of patients [1]. Outpatient departments (OPDs) are often overcrowded, and waiting times are long. According to the Patient’s Charter of the United Kingdom Government, all patients must be seen within 30 min of their scheduled appointment time [4]. Waiting time is an important parameter in determining the quality of care and can be a valuable tool for evaluating patient satisfaction [2]. Previous studies have shown that a prolonged waiting time can be associated with low patient satisfaction [4,5,6,7]. Reducing waiting time has become a major issue for patient satisfaction and for improving the quality of healthcare
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