【Time】14:00-15:00, August 15th, 2017, Tuesday
【Venue】Room N412, Shunde Building 
【Speaker】 Dr.Xiang Zhong，University of Florida
【Host】Dr. Xiaolei Xie
【Title】 Appointment Capacity Planning in Primary Care Clinics with Electronic Visits
【Abstract】Electronic visit (e-visit), which allows patients and primary care providers communicating through secure messages sent from patient portals, has enabled virtual care delivery as an alternative to traditional office visits for selected and non-urgent medical issues. In this study, we model the dynamics of patient appointment backlog using discrete-time bulk-service queues, and develop novel numerical methods for incorporating patient rejoin and flexible provider capacity tailored to the service nature of e-visit. The analytically tractable model enables evaluating the property of care delivery system with e-visit, and addresses the provider capacity planning problem to maximize the potential of e-visit. The impacts of service system intensity, effectiveness of e-visit, and popularity of e-visit on providers' customized practices are discussed. The insights obtained from the model provide guidance to care delivery planners and administrators who are engaged in facilitating e-visit to improve care delivery efficiency and patient access.
【Bio Note】 Xiang Zhong received her B.S. from the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2011, and her M.S. in Statistics and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014 and 2016. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida. Her research interests include stochastic modeling and data analytics with the application in healthcare, service and production systems.

All interested are welcome!