A PREFERENCE-BASED APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING PROBLEM WITH MULTIPLE PATIENT TYPES

Yıl 2019, Cilt: 30 Sayı: 2, 93 - 110, 31.10.2019

Feray Tunçalp , Lerzan Örmeci

Öz

We consider the appointment scheduling process of a physician in a
healthcare facility. There are multiple patient types with different priorities in this
facility. The facility observes the number of appointment requests from each patient
type at the beginning of each day. The facility decides on how to allocate the arriving
appointment requests to available slots over the booking horizon. Each type of pa-
tient prefers a day in the booking horizon with a specific probability. We model this
system with a constrained Markov Decision Process to maximize the infinite-horizon
expected discounted revenue subject to the constraint that the infinite-horizon ex-
pected discounted rejection cost is below a specific threshold. Patients have only
one preference for the appointment day. Each patient is either given an appointment
on the day he/she prefers or the appointment request of that patient is denied. We
prove that the optimal policy is a randomized booking limit policy. To solve the
model, we use Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) techniques. We conduct
numerical experiments and compare the results obtained with ADP techniques with
some benchmark policies. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

HEALTHCARE, APPOİNTMENT SCHEDULİNG, PATİENT PREFERENCES, MARKOV DECİSİON PROCESSES, APPROXİMATE DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING

Kaynakça

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