Engineering Commons^™

The Impact Of Flexibility And Capacity Allocation On The Performance Of Primary Care Practices, Liang Wang

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The two important metrics for any primary care practice are: (1) Timely Access and (2) Patient-physician Continuity. Timely access focuses on the ability of a patient to get access to a physician as soon as possible. Patient-physician continuity refers to building a strong or permanent relationship between a patient and a specific physician by maximizing patient visits to that physician. In the past decade, a new paradigm called advanced access or open access has been adopted by practices nationwide to encourage physician to “do today’s work today.” However, most clinics still reserve pre-scheduled appointments for long lead-time appointments due to …