Examination-order scheduling for minimizing waiting time: A case study of a medical checkup

This paper introduces a mathematical programming model and a heuristic method for examination-order scheduling in medical checkup. The purpose of this scheduling is to minimize the time spent waiting for medical examinations. We create the examination-order schedule based on the expected throughput of examinations. The obtained schedules improved efficiency by reducing the total time spent waiting. Comparisons with previously used scheduling methods demonstrate the efficiency of our scheduling method. We find that the labor cost decreases due to reduction in waiting times. Furthermore, it is shown that the heuristic method proposed in this study has a robustness to the results by means of a Monte Carlo simulation.