Improving Access to Primary Care
The Challenge
Patients often face long delays to get an appointment with their primary care provider. This can affect their health outcomes, satisfaction, and loyalty. The average wait time for a new patient appointment in 15 large US metro markets is 26 days in 2022. This is a result of inefficient and uncertain appointment scheduling systems that do not account for variations in demand and supply.
The Solution
We used a stochastic programming model to optimize the appointment scheduling process for primary care clinics. Our model incorporated uncertainties in demand volume, patient call date, patient desired date, and patient no-show. Our model aimed to minimize the appointment delay for patients while considering patient flow metrics such as resource utilization, throughput, and waiting time.
The Results
We tested our model using data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care clinics. Our results showed that:
- Our model reduced the average appointment delay for patients by 30% compared to two simple daily patient scheduling templates.
- Our model lowered the percentage of patients who did not get any appointment with their provider by 6%.