Optimization of Telemedicine Appointments in Rural Areas

S. Ayca Erdogan (), Tracey L. Krupski () and Jennifer Mason Lobo ()
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S. Ayca Erdogan: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, San Jose State University, San Jose, California 95192
Tracey L. Krupski: Department of Urology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908
Jennifer Mason Lobo: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908

Service Science, 2018, vol. 10, issue 3, 261-276

Abstract: Telemedicine services are increasingly being used to provide medical care to patients in rural areas. We present a two-stage stochastic linear program to inform optimal scheduling of telemedicine patients considering cleaning of procedure devices and patient no-show behavior. We consider the weighted average of patient waiting time and provider idle time and overtime as the performance metric for the schedule. We present a case study for scheduling rural patients to a telemedicine clinic to receive a cystoscopy for bladder cancer surveillance. Through this case study, we provide scheduling insights, including the optimal number of patients to schedule, the appropriate mix of local and distant patients, and the effect of procedure length on the number of patients who can be scheduled without exceeding overtime constraints. We also present experiments to determine how sensitive the results are to changes in the no-show rate and cost coefficients for patient waiting time, provider idle time, and overtime of the clinic. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/serv.2018.0222 .

Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orserv:v:10:y:2018:i:3:p:261-276

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