Intelligent Patient Prioritization: A Dynamic Approach for Military OPDs

The Indian military healthcare framework serves a vital role in providing medical care to active-duty personnel, veterans, and their families. Despite an extensive network of specialized facilities, these systems often struggle with inefficiencies in patient flow, especially in Outpatient Departments (OPDs). Traditional queue management methods, such as first-come-first-serve and token systems, lack the sophistication to address critical factors like patient urgency, workload distribution, and real-time changes in doctor availability. Consequently, patients experience prolonged delays, and healthcare resources are underutilized. This research proposes an innovative dynamic queuing algorithm designed to streamline patient management in military OPDs. The model incorporates three key elements: Weighted Round Robin (WRR) scheduling to allocate patients based on predefined priorities, a Tribonacci sequence-based aging mechanism to dynamically enhance priority for waiting patients, and a real-time load-balancing system that optimizes the allocation of medical resources. A simulated evaluation of the proposed system demonstrated significant improvements, including reduced waiting times and evenly distributed workloads, underscoring its potential to enhance both patient satisfaction and hospital efficiency. By replacing static methodologies with a dynamic, adaptive framework, this approach offers a scalable solution tailored to the demands of high-pressure healthcare settings like military hospitals. Furthermore, its multi-faceted design makes it an ideal candidate for deployment in other complex healthcare environments requiring efficient resource allocation and responsive patient management.