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Managing a multi-panel clinic with heterogeneous patients

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Abstract

Primary care providers (PCPs) are considered the first-line defenders in preventive care. Patients seeking service from the same PCP constitute that physician’s panel, which determines the overall supply and demand of the physician. The process of allocating patients to physician panels is called panel design. This study quantifies patient overflow and builds a mathematical model to evaluate the effect of two implementable panel assignments. In specialized panel assignment, patients are assigned based on their medical needs or visit frequency. In equal panel assignment, patients are distributed uniformly to maintain a similar composition across panels. We utilize majorization theory and numerical examples to evaluate the performance of the two designs. The results show that specialized panel assignment outperforms when (1) patient demands and physician capacity are relatively balanced or (2) patients who require frequent visits incur a higher shortage penalty. In a simulation model with actual patient arrival patterns, we also illustrate the robustness of the results and demonstrate the effect of switching panel policy when the patient pool changes over time.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the department editor, associate editor, and the three anonymous reviewers for taking the time and effort during the review process. We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions that helped improve our paper.

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  1. Department of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management, John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

    Hao-Wei Chen

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  1. Hao-Wei Chen
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Correspondence to Hao-Wei Chen.

Ethics declarations

A part of this research is supported by Research Awards and Fellowships from the University of Toledo under Grant No. l-26885-01. No other relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. Following the policies of the University of Toledo, ethics approval for the data used in this research was not needed. Due to the sensitive nature of the information, the provider of the arrival data used in this study did not consent for their data to be shared publicly. Hence, the data used in the simulation of this study are not available.

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Chen, HW. Managing a multi-panel clinic with heterogeneous patients. Health Care Manag Sci 26, 673–691 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-023-09658-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-023-09658-z

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