Managing access to primary care clinics using scheduling templates.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Operations Research
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Effective management of primary care access is a significant healthcare challenge.
• Appointment scheduling policies are crucial for balancing patient wait times and provider utilization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate methods for identifying optimal appointment scheduling templates.
• To minimize patient expected waiting times while balancing provider utilization.

Main Methods:

• A two-stage stochastic mixed-integer linear program model was developed.
• Simulation was embedded for accurate direct waiting time evaluation.
• Sample average approximation method was used for computational efficiency.

Main Results:

• The model effectively accounts for patient no-shows, provider availability, overbooking, demand uncertainty, and overtime.
• It allows for regular updates to scheduling templates.
• The methods were validated using data from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care clinics.

Conclusions:

• The proposed methods provide a robust framework for optimizing primary care appointment scheduling.
• This approach can lead to improved patient access and more efficient healthcare operations.