Appointment Scheduling in Health Care: Challenges and Opportunities
Abstract
Appointment scheduling systems are used by primary and specialty care clinics to manage access to service providers, as well as by hospitals to schedule elective surgeries. Many factors affect the performance of appointment systems including arrival and service time variability, patient and provider preferences, available information technology and the experience level of the scheduling staff. In addition, a critical bottleneck lies in the application of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IE/OR) techniques. The most common types of health care delivery systems are described in this article with particular attention on the factors that make appointment scheduling challenging. For each environment relevant decisions ranging from a set of rules that guide schedulers to real-time responses to deviations from plans are described. A road map of the state of the art in the design of appointment management systems is provided and future opportunities for novel applications of IE/OR models are identified.
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Scheduling appointments poses significant challenges in primary care and postpones critical diagnoses.
“Scheduling appointments poses significant challenges in primary care and postpones critical diagnoses.”
From Toward Safer Diagnoses: A SEIPS-Based Narrative Review of Diagnostic Errors (2026) · cites this paper as [276]
In order to accommodate high patient demand, clinicians will have to shorten consultation times.
“In order to accommodate high patient demand, clinicians will have to shorten consultation times [276].”
From Toward Safer Diagnoses: A SEIPS-Based Narrative Review of Diagnostic Errors (2026) · cites this paper as [276]
Given the mismatch between available time slots, clinician schedules, and patient needs, clinics often find it challenging to meet patients' expectations, especially during busy periods.
“Given the mismatch between available time slots, clinician schedules, and patient needs, clinics often find it challenging to meet patients’ expectations, especially during busy periods [20,276,277].”
From Toward Safer Diagnoses: A SEIPS-Based Narrative Review of Diagnostic Errors (2026) · cites this paper as [276]
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Lacy, N. L. (2004) · The Annals of Family Medicine · doi:10.1370/afm.123 · Cited by 390 · see citing works
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Outpatient appointment scheduling given individual day-dependent no-show predictions
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- Authors
- Gupta, D., & Denton, B.
- Affiliations
- Graduate Program in Industrial & Systems Engineering
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Venue
- IIE Transactions
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2008-07-17
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 800-819
- ISSN
- 0740-817X (ISSN-L)
- 1545-8830
- OpenAlex
- W2078724364
- Cited by
- 1,043
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 51 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 69 · 2021: 81 · 2020: 74 · 2019: 75 · 2018: 69 · 2017: 97 · 2016: 69 · 2015: 69 · 2014: 73 · 2013: 54 · 2012: 36
- FWCI
- 39.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- IIE Transactions (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Healthcare Operations and Scheduling Optimization
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Emergency Medicine › Emergency and Acute Care Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Scheduling and Timetabling Solutions
- Keywords
- appointment scheduling, healthcare operations, primary health centers, elective surgery scheduling, patient preferences, provider preferences, scheduling rules, real-time rescheduling, health care delivery systems, appointment management system
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