Research of late doctors' appointments points to innovative scheduling strategies to free up time and keep doctors busy

St. Catharines' Brock University researchers say almost half of all doctors’ appointments do not start on time. In two separate studies, they found most appointments start late because physicians weren’t yet available and few were because the patients arrived late. Around 50% of doctor’s appointments start late, one-third of appointments, the studies found, began early, and the rest were on time. The researchers offer two methods that would allow for effective appointment scheduling, allowing doctors to see more patients a day and ultimately reduce the number of days people wait for appointments by increasing capacity:

1. The first method puts appointments closer together near the start and end of the work session, helping keep physicians busy. It spreads appointments farther apart in between, which could reduce patient waiting.
2. The second puts appointments closer together in clusters of two or three, spreading these clusters farther apart. The closeness within clusters and distances between clusters both increase as the day unfolds, also keeping physicians busy. The spaces between clusters could reduce patient waiting.