Comparison between Outpatient Appointment Scheduling and Chemotherapy Outpatient Appointment Scheduling

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Industrial Engineering and Systems Management, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

Healthcare management has received tremendous interest among researchers as it
deals with human health. In this paper, two applications of scheduling on healthcare
systems are studied. These two applications are outpatient appointment scheduling
and chemotherapy outpatient appointment scheduling. We hold a scientific
comparison based on computational models between the two appointment systems
to investigate common and distinguishing features. The comparison is supported with
two integer programming models computing the appointment times for patients. The
two models are coded using CPLEX solver followed by numerical analysis of the
results. The comparison findings are outpatient appointment problem has rich
literature, whereas the chemotherapy outpatient problem has limited literature.
Moreover, the appointment scheduling of chemotherapy outpatient units differs from
outpatient clinics in some characteristics such as variability in treatment length,
multiple steps in treatment and shared resources. On the other hand, the two systems
have some common characteristics such as objectives and uncertainty in some
parameters.
The Egyptian International Journal of Engineering Sciences and Technology
Volume 19, EIJEST, Vol. 19, 2016
Special Issue ICESA-2016
June 2016
Pages 326-332

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