Outpatient appointment scheduling : an evaluation of alternative appointment systems to reduce waiting times and underutilization in an ENT outpatient clinic

The Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) outpatient clinic of Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (further referred to as ‘the outpatient clinic’) is confronted with long waiting times for patients, overtime for doctors and nurses during clinic sessions, and peak workloads for its counter personnel. Previous studies (Huang, 1994) show that long waiting times are an important dissatisfaction for patients. According to doctors and personnel, overtime and peak workloads are potential threats for the quality of care and the quality of labor. This case study focuses on outpatient scheduling, by evaluating different appointment scheduling systems as a means to reduce patients’ waiting times, to improve the outpatient clinic’s utilization, to reduce doctor’s overtime and idle time, and to focus on the counter personnel’s peak workload as well.