Quantum Algorithm for Appointment Scheduling

Suppose a practical scene that when two or more parties want to schedule anappointment, they need to share their calendars with each other in order to make itpossible. According to the present result the whole communication cost to solve thisproblem should be their calendars’ length by using a classical algorithm. In this work, weinvestigate the appointment schedule issue made by N users and try to accomplish it inquantum information case. Our study shows that the total communication cost will bequadratic times smaller than the conventional case if we apply a quantum algorithm in theappointment-scheduling problem.

Optimal appointment scheduling with no-shows and exponential service time considering overtime work

Appointment systems are used by health clinics to manage access to service providers.In such systems,a specified number of patients are scheduled in advance,but certain patients may not arrive or‘show up’to their appointments.The existence of no-show behaviour influences both the operational cost of the clinics and the waiting time of the patients.In this paper,we determine an optimal schedule that takes no-show behaviour into account to determine the time intervals between patients under the framework of the individual-block/variableinterval rule for minimising the overall cost of the patient waiting time,the practitioner idle time and overtime.Under the condition that the service time of each patient is exponentially distributed,we compare the results with a schedule designed for the same expected number of patients in the absence of no-shows and analyse the effect on the system performance from the perspectives of day-length,expected workload,no-show probability,ratio of overtime costs and no-golf policy.We extend our results to an equally-spaced appointment system,which is commonly used in practice.Our results show that not only do no-shows greatly affect the system performance compared with an appointment system with the same expected workload without no-shows,but they also affect the optimal scheduling behaviours in the dome-shaped distribution.In addition,overtime cannot be eliminated completely even if the day length is adequate for all patients because of the stochastic characteristic of service time.

Optimizing Vaccine Access: A Web-Based Scheduling System with Geo-Tagging Integration and Decision Support for Local Health Centers

The system created aims to produce an online vaccination appointment scheduling system with geo-tagging integration and a decision-support mechanism for neighborhood health clinics. With a decision support mechanism that suggests the essential vaccines based on their account details, it is made to meet the unique vaccination needs of each patient. The system includes immunizations that are accessible locally, and patients and midwives can manage their own corresponding information through personal accounts. Viewers of websites can visualize the distribution of vaccines by purok thanks to geotagging. The Agile Scrum Methodology was modified by the researchers for early delivery, change flexibility, and continual system improvement in order to accomplish the study’s main goal. In order to assess the system’s acceptability in terms of functional adequacy, performance efficiency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security, maintainability, and portability, it was designed in accordance with the ISO 25010 Product Software Quality Standards. Following the assessment, the system was given an average total weighted mean score of 4.62, which represents a verbal interpretation of “strongly agree”. This score demonstrates that the evaluators were in agreement that the system met the requirements of ISO 25010 for Product Software Quality Standards.

Effectiviness, Safety and Satisfaction in Teleurology

Introduction: Telemedicine has been used as a tool for improving access to health services worldwide. The aim of the present study is thus to evaluate the effectiveness of urological consultation by videoconference, perceptions regarding safety on the part of medical teams providing video consultation services and patient satisfaction after a urological appointment. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional, observational, and analytical study was carried out with 50 volunteers referred from the basic health unit for a urology appointment. All patients were evaluated remotely by videoconference and in person by different urology teams. Results: The study revealed that effectiveness in terms of the degree of match between diagnoses performed by video consultation and those performed in person was 92%. The urology team’s perception regarding safety, measured using an in-house safety questionnaire, was high for both videoconferencing and in-person consultations and there was no statistical difference between the two (overall safety score for video consultation compared to in-person consultation was 9.7 ± 0.8 compared to 9.6 ± 0.8 and the p-value was 0.3 for Student’s t-test). Patient satisfaction with the appointment was similarly high for both groups, averaging 9.72 ± 0.4 among patients who attended a video consultation and 9.82 ± 0.4 among those whose consultation was conducted in person, with a p-value of 0.10478 for Student’s t-test. Conclusion: Video consultation in urology is an effective way to perform diagnoses, with high levels of perceived safety among urologists and high satisfaction rates among patients.

Factors associated with non-adherence to scheduled medical follow-up appointments among Cameroonian children requiring HIV care: a case-control analysis of the usual-care group in the MORE CARE trial

Background:A better understanding of why HIV-exposed/infected children fail to attend their scheduled follow-up medical appointments for HIV-related care would allow for interventions to enhance the delivery of care.The aim of this study was to determine characteristics of the caregiver-child dyad(CCD)associated with children’s non-adherence to scheduled follow-up medical appointments in HIV programs in Cameroon.Methods:We conducted a case-control analysis of the usual-care group of CCDs from the MORE CARE trial,in which the effect of mobile phone reminders for HIV-exposed/infected children in attending follow-up appointments was assessed from January to March 2013.For this study,the absence of a child at their appointment was considered a case and the presence of a child at their appointment was defined as a control.We used three multivariate binary logistic regression analyses.The best-fit model was the one which had the smallest chi-square value with the Hosmer-Lemeshow test(HLχ^(2)).Magnitudes of associations were expressed by odds ratio(OR),with a p-value<0.05 considered as statistically significant.Results:We included 30 cases and 31 controls.Our best-fit model which considered the sex of the adults and children separately(HLχ^(2)=3.5)showed that missing scheduled medical appointments was associated with:lack of formal education of the caregiver(OR 29.1,95%CI 1.1-777.0;p=0.044),prolonged time to the next appointment/follow-up(OR[1 week increase]1.4,95%CI 1.03-2.0;p=0.032),and being a female child(OR 5.2,95%CI 1.2-23.1;p=0.032).One model(HLχ^(2)=10.5)revealed that woman-boy pairs adhered less to medical appointments compared to woman-girl pairs(OR 4.9,95%CI 1.05-22.9;p=0.044).Another model(HLχ^(2)=11.1)revealed that man-boy pairs were more likely to attend appointments compared to woman-girl pairs(OR 0.23,95%CI 0.06-0.93;p=0.039).There were no statistical associations for the ages of the children or the caregivers,the study sites,or the HIV status(confirmed vs.suspected)of the children.Conclusion:The profile of children who would not attend follow-up medical appointments in an HIV program was:a female,with a caregiver who has had no formal education,and with a longer follow-up appointment interval.There is a possibility that female children are favored by female caregivers and that male children are favored by male caregivers when they come to medical care.