Using Simulation to Evaluate Provider Scheduling Heuristics in Specialty Outpatient Clinics

Bjorn Berg; Ashleigh Vandenbrink

doi:10.1109/WSC40007.2019.9004653

Using Simulation to Evaluate Provider Scheduling Heuristics in Specialty Outpatient Clinics

Bjorn Berg, Ashleigh Vandenbrink

Health Policy and Management

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

Scheduling providers in outpatient specialty clinics is often done in a non-systematic fashion as a result of providers having varying clinic time assignments. This is particularly challenging in academic medical centers and large health systems where providers have responsibilities outside of clinical duties. This leads to inconsistent use of clinic space, staff, and other fixed resources in addition to high variability in operational performance measures. In this paper we present a discrete-event simulation model used to evaluate heuristics for scheduling providers within a specialty clinic. The simulation model is developed and validated based on a specialty clinic within University of Minnesota Health. The scheduling heuristics are evaluated across multiple operational performance measures based on relative improvements compared to test cases from actual schedules used in practice.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	1232-1242
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Electronic)	9781728132839
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC40007.2019.9004653
State	Published - Dec 2019
Event	2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019 - National Harbor, United States Duration: Dec 8 2019 → Dec 11 2019

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - Winter Simulation Conference
Volume	2019-December
ISSN (Print)	0891-7736

Conference

Conference	2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019
Country/Territory	United States
City	National Harbor
Period	12/8/19 → 12/11/19

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Mr. Mike Choi and the staff at the University of Minnesota’s Clinics and Surgery Center for their support and feedback related to this work. This research was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Minnesota.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.

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10.1109/WSC40007.2019.9004653

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Berg, B., & Vandenbrink, A. (2019). Using Simulation to Evaluate Provider Scheduling Heuristics in Specialty Outpatient Clinics. In 2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019 (pp. 1232-1242). Article 9004653 (Proceedings - Winter Simulation Conference; Vol. 2019-December). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC40007.2019.9004653

Using Simulation to Evaluate Provider Scheduling Heuristics in Specialty Outpatient Clinics. / Berg, Bjorn; Vandenbrink, Ashleigh.
2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2019. p. 1232-1242 9004653 (Proceedings - Winter Simulation Conference; Vol. 2019-December).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Berg, B & Vandenbrink, A 2019, Using Simulation to Evaluate Provider Scheduling Heuristics in Specialty Outpatient Clinics. in 2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019., 9004653, Proceedings - Winter Simulation Conference, vol. 2019-December, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 1232-1242, 2019 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC 2019, National Harbor, United States, 12/8/19. https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC40007.2019.9004653

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Using Simulation to Evaluate Provider Scheduling Heuristics in Specialty Outpatient Clinics

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