To pool or not to pool in hospitals: a theoretical and practical comparison for a radiotherapy outpatient department

Paul Joustra (), Erik Sluis and Nico Dijk

Annals of Operations Research, 2010, vol. 178, issue 1, 77-89

Abstract: This paper examines whether urgent and regular patients waiting for a consultation at a radiotherapy outpatient department should be pooled or not. Both queuing theory and discrete event simulation were applied to a realistic case study. The theoretical approach shows that pooling is not always beneficial with regard to the waiting times of urgent patients. Furthermore, the practical approach indicates that the separation of queues may require less capacity to meet the waiting time performance target for urgent as well as regular patients. The results seem to be of general interest for hospitals. Copyright The Author(s) 2010

Keywords: Computer simulation; Hospitals; Queuing theory; Radiotherapy outpatient department; Waiting lists (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10479-009-0559-7

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