An Estimation Method of Waiting Time for Health Service at Hospital by Using a Portable RFID and Robust Estimation

Abstract

Patients that have an health service by doctor have to wait long time at many hospitals. The long waiting time is the worst factor of patient's dissatisfaction for hospital service according to questionnaire for patients. The present paper describes an estimation method of the waiting time for each patient without an electronic medical chart system. The method applies a portable RFID system to data acquisition and robust estimation of probability distribution of the health service and test time by doctor for high-accurate waiting time estimation. We carried out an health service of data acquisition at a real hospital and verified the efficiency of the proposed method. The proposed system widely can be used as data acquisition system in various fields such as marketing service, entertainment or human behavior measurement.

A Simulation-Based Approach in Estimating Waiting Time for Ophthalmology Outpatients

“…The method is developed in accordance with tens of data of outpatients that visited a hospital in the morning on some day in March of 2009. It is described in Ishigaki et al (2010) that further data acquisition and verification tests are required to put the method in Ishigaki et al (2010) into practical use. Besides, the definition of waiting time in Ishigaki et al (2010) is different from that in this paper.…”

“…It applies a portable RFID system to data acquisition and robust estimation of probability distribution of the health service and examination time by doctor for high-accurate waiting time estimation. The method in Ishigaki et al (2010) is applicable for outpatients and ophthalmologists to make appointments for the next consultations. The method is developed in accordance with tens of data of outpatients that visited a hospital in the morning on some day in March of 2009.…”

“…In Ishigaki et al (2010), waiting-time estimation is presented for ophthalmology outpatients visiting a hospital without an electronic medical chart system. It applies a portable RFID system to data acquisition and robust estimation of probability distribution of the health service and examination time by doctor for high-accurate waiting time estimation.…”

“…Disclosure of information on waiting time is considered to be the other promising approach to reduce the stress of outpatients in Ogawa, Esumi, Asahara, Kawauchi, and Takeuchi (2008); Ogawa, Maki, Esumi, Asahara, Kawauchi, and Takeuchi (2009) and Ishigaki, Yamamoto, Nakamura, and Akamatsu (2010). After the consultation is complete on some day at a hospital in Japan, an outpatient generally makes an appointment for next consultation while discussing it with a medical doctor.…”