Capacity planning and appointment scheduling for new patient oncology consults.

To ensure that patients receive timely access to care, it has become increasingly important to use existing care provider capacity as efficiently as possible and to make informed capacity planning decisions. To support this decision-making process at a regional cancer center in British Columbia (Canada), we undertook a simulation and optimization based study that investigated the simultaneous impact of the available number of new patient consultation slots, appointment scheduling policies and oncologist specialization configurations on the timeliness of patient access to care and physician workload. The key contribution of this paper is the methodological framework it provides to decision makers who manage specialty clinics to ensure that they are using their resources efficiently and making informed strategic short- and mid-term capacity planning decisions for new patient demand.