Radiology procedure time slot redesign to improve scheduling efficiency

Patient wait time and access to care are two well-known issues in current radiology delivery systems. Radiology departments provide services such as x-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, MRIs, mammograms, and nuclear medicine, which are important in diagnosing and treating patients in a timely manner. Patients are typically scheduled into time slots, with time lengths arbitrarily chosen, that are based on the type of procedure required, for example, 30 minutes for x-ray and an hour for CT scans. The design of the current scheduling time slot does not take into account the difference in patient characteristics, which cause patients to wait or medical staff to idle. Hence, it is important to understand how patient characteristics contribute to the length of time for procedures. In this research, attributes such as where patients are sent from, gender, procedure type, mobility, and body area to be studied are considered. The goal is to classify the length of time for each patient into a better designed time slot so that service quality and radiographer's utilization rate can be improved. The proposed model development is demonstrated through a hospital radiology department.