Optimal Scheduling of Doctors Outpatient Departments Based on Patients’ Behavior

The low operational efficiency in the field of medical and health care has become a serious problem in China; the long time that the patients have to wait for is the main phenomenon of difficult medical service. Medical industry is service-oriented and its main purpose is to make profits, so the benefits and competitiveness of a hospital depend on patient satisfaction. This paper makes a survey on a large hospital in Harbin of China and collects relevant data and then uses the prospect theory to analyze patients’ and doctors’ behavioral characteristics and the model of patient satisfaction is established based on fuzzy theory with a triplet α/β/γ. The optimal scheduling of clinic is described as a problem with the rule of first come, first served which maximizes patient satisfaction for the main goal and minimizes operating costs for the secondary goal. And the corresponding mathematical model is established. Finally, a solution method named plant growth simulation algorithm (PGSA) is presented. Then, by means of calculating of the example and comparing with genetic algorithm, the results show that the optimum can be reached; meanwhile the efficiency of the presented algorithm is better than the genetic algorithm