An Integrated Multi- Priority Patient Scheduling In Computed Tomography (CT): A Case Study

Scheduling the multi probity patients is one of the major challenges in improving efficiency of healthcare services. The decisionwhether the walk-ins patients are assigned to an appointment time and waiting in the center until they are chosen for service havealways been a challenge and difficult for service providers. Patients with the different request need a variety of healthcare resourcesas they receive healthcare services. Integrated multi-category patient scheduling decisions in the Computed Tomography (CT)center is addressed in this research. We formulate this decision-problem as a finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) withexpected net center’s revenue as the objective function. Simulation models are used to compare the performance of optimalpolicies. Empirical data collected from the CT center in Tehran, Iran and the optimal policy had a threshold structure in the two setscanners. More revenue for the center, fewer patients waiting for treatment in throughout the planning horizon, more patientsatisfaction, fewer postponed patients that are not deal with to treatment, and request of each walk-ins patient for treatment acceptor not are the results of our model versus the common policies in this centers already like FcFs policy. An optimal policy can beimplemented relatively easily and could be tested in this center in the future.