Patients' waiting time and doctors' idle time in the outpatient setting.

Abstract

If outpatient care is to be made acceptable to the patient and still remain efficient, some balance between the patients' waiting time and the doctors' idle time must be achieved. Examination of the literature on the subject and of three specific waiting-time studies revealed that there are at least seven variables affecting this relationship: appointment interval, service time, patients' arrival pattern, number of no-shows, number of walk-ins, physicians' arrival pattern, and interruptions in patient services.