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Comparison between Outpatient Appointment Scheduling and Chemotherapy Outpatient Appointment Scheduling

Research Authors
M. Heshmat and A. Eltawil
Research Year
2016
Research Journal
The Egyptian International Journal of Engineering Sciences & Technology
Research Publisher
NULL
Research Vol
19 (2)
Research Rank
1
Research_Pages
326-332
Research Website
NULL
Research 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.