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                Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management
                             The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Date: Wednesday, 4:30pm - 5:30pm, May 20, 2015

Title: Guidelines for scheduling in primary care under different patient types and stochastic nurse and provider service times: a mathematical programming approach

Speaker: Dr. Hari Balasubramanian, Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Abstract:

Scheduling in primary care is challenging because of the diversity of patient cases (acute versus chronic), mix of appointments (prescheduled versus same-day), and uncertain time spent with providers and non-provider staff (nurses/medical assistants). In this paper, we present an empirically driven stochastic integer programming model that schedules and sequences patient appointments during a work day session. The objective is to minimize a weighted measure of provider idle time and patient wait time. Key model features include: an empirically based classification scheme to accommodate different chronic and acute conditions seen in a primary care practice; adequate coordination of patient time with a nurse and a provider; and strategies for introducing slack in the schedule to counter the effects of variability in service time with providers and nurses. In our computational experiments we characterize, for each patient type in our classification, where empty slots should be positioned in the schedule to reduce waiting time. Our results also demonstrate that the optimal start times for a variety of patient-centered heuristic sequences consistently follow a pattern that results in easy to implement guidelines.

Biography:

Dr. Hari Balasubramanian is Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After receiving his doctoral degree at Arizona State University in 2006, Dr. Balasubramanian spent two years as a Research Associate at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota). He joined at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in Fall 2008. His research interests are in operations research applied to improving the delivery of healthcare – specifically in reducing costs and reducing delays in patient care in the outpatient, emergency room and inpatient settings. For this line of research, Dr. Balasubramanian has been awarded peer reviewed federal research grants, such as the National Science Foundation CAREER grant (2013-2018). His research has been published in both operations research and clinical journals.

Everyone is welcome to attend the talk!

Venue: Room 513,
      William M.W. Mong Engineering Building (ERB),
      (Engineering Building Complex Phase 2)
      The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The talk will be hosted by:
Prof. Janny Leung,
Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
E-mail: janny@se.cuhk.edu.hk
Homepage: http://www.se.cuhk.edu.hk/people/janny.html

SEEM-5202 Website: http://seminar.se.cuhk.edu.hk
Email: seem5202@se.cuhk.edu.hk