Abstract:

Objective To propose the optimized algorithm to effectively reduce the total waiting time of patients as so to make full use of the hospital resources for medical service. Methods With total waiting time of outpatients as objective function, hybrid open flow shop model of outpatient examinations was established. The examination load of equipment of each examination department was calculated, and the bottleneck department was determined. The semi-online algorithm based on the bottleneck department was proposed to minimize the total waiting time of outpatients, and was performed on the data collected from 20 groups of outpatients in the Ninth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine. Results Through the semi-online algorithm based on the bottleneck department, the total waiting time of 20 groups of outpatients decreased by 10.5%. Conclusion Compared with the sequence generated randomly by the outpatients, the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the total waiting time and improve the efficiency of hospital resources for medical service.

Key words: outpatient, hybrid open flow shop, total waiting time, semi-online algorithm, resource allocation