Abstract
This paper is focused on the factors causing long patient waiting time/clinic overtime in outpatient clinics and how to mitigate them using discrete event simulation. A two-week period of data collection is conducted in an outpatient clinic of a Singapore government hospital. Detailed time study from patient arrival to patient departure is conducted, and the possible factors causing long patient waiting time/clinic overtime are discussed. A discrete simulation model is constructed to illustrate how to improve the clinic performance by mitigating the detected factors. Simulation and implementation results show that significant improvement is achieved if the factors are well addressed.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to sincerely thank staffs in the Singapore government hospital for providing source data used in this study and professional opinions.
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Zhu, Z., Heng, B.H. & Teow, K.L. Analysis of Factors Causing Long Patient Waiting Time and Clinic Overtime in Outpatient Clinics. J Med Syst 36, 707–713 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-010-9538-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-010-9538-4