Identifying key variables for designing a scheduling system for outpatient appointments: A systematic review

• Main Authors: Afsoon Aeenparast, Maryam kheirandish, Farzaneh Maftoon, Faranak Farzadi
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Iranian Institute for Health Sciences Research 2017-12-01
• Series: Payesh
• Subjects: outpatient; appointment system; health care scheduling
• Online Access: http://payeshjournal.ir/article-1-72-en.html

Objective (s): The aim of this study was to assess dimensions and application of outpatient appointment systems. Methods: A systematic review was performed to indicate main factors affecting the performance of outpatient scheduling systems. Relevant articles were extracted from several databases including SID, Google scholar, PubMed, and Magiran using “outpatient”, “appointment”, and “scheduling” as keywords. Results: In all 767 citations were identified. Of these 34 papers were found relevant and included in this review. The review showed that there were four main methods to design and improve the outpatient scheduling systems: Mathematical optimization methods (deterministic and stochastic), Heuristics, Queueing theory, and Simulation method. In addition we found that three groups of factors impacted the performance of outpatient scheduling system. These were factors related to the characteristics of service providing system, factors related to patients, and factors related to clinic approach and policy. Conclusion: Outpatient scheduling systems are important in quality improvement of health care services. It seems that the complexity of designing a scheduling systems increases as quantity and diversity of services increases. Access to right and efficient data is necessary to design an outpatient scheduling system.