Simulation-Based Analysis of Appointment Scheduling System in Healthcare Services: A Critical Review

Abstract

This review paper investigates the healthcare simulation appointment scheduling system (SASS). It primarily aims to highlight critical appointment scheduling challenges and outline the most prominent research topics. This critical review also intends to provide a comprehensive summary of these works, revealing progress achieved on the topic while highlighting potential concerns in healthcare that can be modeled via simulation. In total, 350 articles published in the period 2000-2021 in the Web of Science database were collected; 250 articles were chosen for review. Several approaches are discovered using the keyword SASS analysis, with four simulation approaches central to the research subject and deserving additional consideration. Finally, this study indicates that future research should focus on improving the efficiency of simulation optimization methods by reducing their time cost and increasing satisfaction.