Appointment rule Sample Clauses

Appointment rule. As explained in the literature review, deciding on the appointment rule implies there needs to be decided on the block size, the initial block and the appointment intervals. Seven appointment rules are distinguished in literature, namely: - Individual-block/fixed-interval - Single-block - Individual-block/fixed-interval with an initial block - Multiple-block/fixed-interval - Multiple-block/fixed-interval with an initial block - Variable-block/fixed-interval - Individual-block/variable-interval As said in chapter 1, the dermatology outpatient clinic currently uses an individual- block/fixed-interval appointment rule. However, the department indicates that it believes that adjusting appointment intervals based on patient classification could be useful. Moreover, in paragraph 1.2.4, we have found that there are significant differences in the service times for new and return patients. The individual-block/variable-interval rule entails that patients are scheduled with appointment intervals varying individually. Therefore, we will consider this rule. The individual-block/variable-interval with an initial block rule only differs from it in that it assigns more than one patient to the first appointment time of a clinic session. This is done to avoid the doctor staying idle in case the first patient is late or does not show up at all. Changing to this appointment rule is only a minor change to the current one and could thus be easily implemented should it have beneficial effects on the performance of the appointment system. Investigation of this rule thus seems worthwhile. The single-block appointment rule schedules all patients for a clinic session at the beginning of that clinic session. Obviously, this will lead to a lot of waiting time for the patients and therefore we will not consider this appointment rule. The multiple-block/fixed-interval (with or without an initial block) and variable-block/fixed intervals appointment rules all have in common that multiple patients are scheduled to the same appointment time. The Nuffield studies of England (1965) pointed out that such appointment rules might be more appropriate when the mean consultation time is rather short, such that patients won’t experience too long waiting times when they are given the same appointment time. Since the mean consultation time is not so short in the case of the dermatology outpatient clinic (averages vary between 19 and 25 minutes depending on patient and doctor type) and since patients...