Reducing Waiting Time in Local Diagnostic Clinic: An Application of Queueing Theory

Long waiting time has been observed to be one of the problems that exists in the process of the different establishments - including in healthcare services. In the chosen local diagnostic clinic of the researchers which offers Laboratory Tests, X-rays, and ECG, they experience a long queue of outpatients that leads to a long waiting time. Through application of queuing theory, will help this kind of healthcare setting to analyze the waiting lines of outpatients. This study also shows the evaluation of the system of the local diagnostic clinic to find the bottlenecks that affect the waiting time of the outpatients. With the use of Arena Simulation Software (ASS), constraints in the system and specific system conditions were identified. Through analysis and interpretation of the results of ASS, the primary problem of having a long waiting time is also discussed in this study - the lack of number of stations and personnel in some services. With that, proposed recommendations are elucidated to solve the bottlenecks in reducing the waiting time of outpatients in the local diagnostic clinic.