Overview and classification of evaluation metrics of appointment scheduling systems

Introduction: This study reviews the several metrics used to evaluate the performance of appointment scheduling systems. Material and Methods: The articles in English were searched using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases and Google scholar search engine until July 23, 2023. We used queueing theory to classify evaluation metrics. Results: Out of 23403 articles, 75 papers were prepared for detailed analysis. We classify evaluation metrics of appointment scheduling system along with their definition and frequency of use. A total of 24 measures containing twelve (%50), seven (%29), and five (%21) were related to the categories of arrivals (patient), queue (at clinic), and server (physician) were found, respectively. Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this paper was one of the first studies collecting and classifying all evaluation metrics of appointment scheduling system in order to help other researchers. Most metrics pertained to patients which may highlight the importance of the patient’s perspective in evaluating appointment scheduling systems.