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More Efficient Doctor's Appointment Scheduling
from the your-appointment-begins-at-2:13:31 dept
Now that IBM is looking just about anywhere for customers who can actually make use of that grid/utility computing system they've been hyping for the past few years, they're apparently looking for different types of "challenging" problems. One such problem they're now hoping to tackle is better scheduling of doctor's appointments, which actually sounds like an interesting theoretical problem. Most doctor's appointments are scheduled in usual chunks of time, and the schedule always falls apart when sessions run long. The end result is that patients are left sitting around for a very long time. The goal of this new system would be to try to more accurately schedule appointments, based on a variety of information including the patients' own medical histories and visits. It's unlikely that such a system will be perfect, but it will be interesting to see what comes out of it, and if appointment scheduling can really be improved with more information, or if the semi-random process that exists now really is the most efficient.
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Other Reasons while Dr.s Schedule fails (no comput
Doctors have to take phone calls and emergencies early in the their day. For example, I told my internist that I always call to ask if he is on schedule before I come in. He said, "if they ever tell you I'm on schedule, it's not true. I'm behind schedule by the time I see my first patient of the day." (And they DO sometimes incorrectly say he's on time.)
If a doctor is routinely behind schedule, any idiot could decide to schedule patients less frequently. Medical groups prefer to make sure their doctor's do not "waste" time between appointments; they know they are overscheduling. A much better use of computers would be to notify people WHEN to come in for their appointment, based on the actual progress the doctor is making and the patients' distance in time from the doctor's office.
- The Precision Blogger
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com
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