ABSTRACT
During the first few months of the COVID crisis in 2020, a large number of appointments were canceled at many outpatient clinics across the US as a precautionary measure. This cancelation of appointments resulted in a long backlog. As clinics started to slowly open with safety precautions, they were faced with the daunting task of rescheduling these canceled appointments in addition to regular appointments. Administrators were faced with the question - how many appointments can be scheduled in a day without increasing physician and exam-room capacity? In this paper, a combination of mathematical optimization models and best-practice guidelines gleaned from literature were used to arrive at a set of recommendations for a pediatric orthopedic clinic. Recommendations include number of appointments per provider per day, the sequence of appointments by visit type and start-time (appointment time) for each appointment. Implicit in these recommendations is the minimization of length of visit (LOV) by minimizing waiting-time for patients. Exam-room utilization was also simulated to ensure existing exam-rooms will be sufficient for handling the number of appointments recommended by mathematical models. © 2021 IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2021. All rights reserved.