PURPOSE Although arthritis is the leading cause of pain and disability in Canada, and physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) are beneficial both for chronic osteoarthritis (OA) and for inflammatory arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), there appear to be problems with access to such services. The aim of this study was to document wait times from referral by physician to cons...

A subsidized primary care clinic in Singapore wanted to evaluate the impact of different patient appointment apportionment and patient-doctor allocation strategies on the cycle time that their patients need to spend during their clinic visits. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is limited literature on such studies. This paper aims to fill this research gap via scientific evaluation o...

A subsidized primary care clinic in Singapore wanted to evaluate the impact of different patient appointment apportionment and patient-doctor allocation strategies on the cycle time that their patients need to spend during their clinic visits. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is limited literature on such studies. This paper aims to fill this research gap via scientific evaluation o...

background: waiting time indicates the feasibility of access to medical services and can be measured as a performance indicator. long waiting times prohibit the provision of good services, waste patients’ time, and jeopardise patient satisfaction. therefore, patients' satisfaction from waiting time plays a significant role in quality assurance and management. methods: in this qualitative study,...

We develop a convex programming approach to the appointment system design problem in a single server facility, using a (stochastic) network flow model to capture the waiting time performance measure of each patient in the system. We solve a robust min-max problem, using a representative “worst case” distribution matching the prescribed means and covariance estimates of the service durations of ...

INTRODUCTION State Medicaid programs were established to care for the poor by eliminating financial barriers that otherwise prevent them from being treated in the mainstream health care system. The number of children eligible for Medicaid services is increasing, yet the number of Medicaid providers remains low. Health care providers cited failed appointments as a major problem with Medicaid pat...