7. In this chapter, we saw that Dr. Baker was booking patients every 30 minutes over a 6-hour time period, allowing her to see 12 patients a day. No-shows accounted for about 2% of her appointments. The exam time averaged 25 minutes. In her efforts to reduce the backlog, she is now seeing patients from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Even though she could schedule 17 patients (17 intervals) during that time period, she has decided to see only 16 (number of arrivals) and leave the last 30 minutes of the day to catch up on paperwork.

a. Use the Kaandorp and Koole (2007) appointment scheduling tool to evaluate her new schedule (http://calculator.gerkoole.com/appointment-scheduler). Use weights of 1 for waiting, tardiness, and idle time. Compare the schedule with the small neighborhood schedule. Which one is better and why?

b. Now assign a weight of 7 for waiting and compare the results of Dr. Baker’s schedule and the small neighborhood schedule. Which one is better and why?

c. Dr. Baker’s office has been sending multiple appointment reminders, which decreased the no-show rate to 1.5%. Reassess the results (based on those you obtained in part b).

d. A nurse now pulls the patient’s record on the computer before Dr. Baker enters the exam room. Visit time has now gone from 25 to 22 minutes. Reassess the results (based on those you obtained in part c).