Dynamic Interday and Intraday Scheduling

Abstract

Adaptive Patient Flow Management Appointment scheduling has significant clinical, operational, and economical impact on healthcare systems. An informed scheduling strategy that can effectively match patient demand and service capacity dynamically is vital for the business of medical providers, quality of care, and patient satisfaction. By regulating patient flow via an appointment system, healthcare providers can mitigate arrival process variability and improve operational performance. The simultaneous consideration of appointment day (interday scheduling) and time of day (intraday scheduling) in dynamic scheduling decisions is an important theoretical and practical problem that has remained open because of its stochastic nature, complex structure, and large dimensionality. Zacharias et al. (2022) fill this critical gap in the literature. They introduce a novel dynamic programming framework, designed with the intention of bridging two independently established streams of literature, and to leverage their latest advances in tackling the joint problem. They advance the theory of the field to provide a rigorous and practically implantable solution.