ArticleHealthcare informatics research2017
Application of Queueing Theory to the Analysis of Changes in Outpatients' Waiting Times in Hospitals Introducing EMR.
Article in Healthcare informatics research, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The effectiveness of EMR implementation regarding reducing documentation errors and waiting time for patients in outpatient clinics: a systematic review.F1000Research · 2021Pooled it
- Learning From Queues: Operational Analysis and Performance Evaluation of Dialysis Duration in a Paired Kidney Exchange With anLearning health systems · 2026Article
- Evaluation of Queue Management System (QMS) Use in Chest X-Ray for Tuberculosis Screening: A Case Study.The Indian journal of radiology & imaging · 2025Article
- Outcome evaluation of technical strategies on reduction of patient waiting time in the outpatient department at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre-Northern Tanzania.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Exposure frequency, intensity, and duration: What we know about work-related asthma risks for healthcare workers from cleaning and disinfection.Journal of occupational and environmental hygiene · 2023Review
- Kullback-Leibler Divergence of an Open-Queuing Network of a Cell-Signal-Transduction Cascade.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Physician-Customized Strategies for Reducing Outpatient Waiting Time in South Korea Using Queueing Theory and Probabilistic Metamodels.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Queueing Theory and COVID-19 Prevention: Model Proposal to Maximize Safety and Performance of Vaccination Sites.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Optimizing Endoscope Reprocessing Resources Via Process Flow Queuing Analysis.Journal of medical systems · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis research used queueing theory to analyze changes in outpatients' waiting times before and after the introduction of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems.
methodsWe focused on the exact drawing of two fundamental parameters for queueing analysis, arrival rate (λ) and service rate (µ), from digital data to apply queueing theory to the analysis of outpatients' waiting times. We used outpatients' reception times and consultation finish times to calculate the arrival and service rates, respectively.
resultsUsing queueing theory, we could calculate waiting time excluding distorted values from the digital data and distortion factors, such as arrival before the hospital open time, which occurs frequently in the initial stage of a queueing system. We analyzed changes in outpatients' waiting times before and after the introduction of EMR using the methodology proposed in this paper, and found that the outpatients' waiting time decreases after the introduction of EMR. More specifically, the outpatients' waiting times in the target public hospitals have decreased by rates in the range between 44% and 78%.
conclusionsIt is possible to analyze waiting times while minimizing input errors and limitations influencing consultation procedures if we use digital data and apply the queueing theory. Our results verify that the introduction of EMR contributes to the improvement of patient services by decreasing outpatients' waiting time, or by increasing efficiency. It is also expected that our methodology or its expansion could contribute to the improvement of hospital service by assisting the identification and resolution of bottlenecks in the outpatient consultation process.
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