A professor at the University of Science and Technology Beijing School of Economics and Management (SEM) published a first-author paper in the UTD24 journal Production and Operations Management, with University of Houston researchers.
The paper, "Reducing Patient Tardiness: From Experiment to Implementation," was led by Professor Gu Wei of the Department of Information Systems and Data Science, with Meng Li of the University of Houston and others.
The study tested two lateness penalties for medical appointments: a last-place penalty assigning late patients to the end of the queue, and a fixed-position penalty moving them back a set number of places. A randomized controlled trial at a partner hospital in Asia covered 9,573 visits.
The fixed-position penalty had no significant effect, while the last-place penalty significantly reduced late arrivals, especially when no appointment-time recommendation was given. It also improved compliance with recommended times.
The team then implemented the last-place penalty on a larger dataset of 61,829 visits and confirmed the results.
Production and Operations Management, published by the Production and Operations Management Society, is a top UTD24 journal covering supply chains, smart manufacturing, inventory, sustainability, and AI in operations.
