An outpatient segmentation model: estimation of stakeholder costs.

This research describes a constraint-based heuristic model of capacity segmentation for outpatient facilities used to estimate the effect of segmentation constraints on stakeholders. Growth of free-standing ambulatory surgery centres has been dramatic in recent years with institutions being urged by governments and insurers to segment inpatients (IP) and outpatients (OP) to reduce costs and improve services. Critics of segmentation argue it is a false economy to separate inpatients and outpatients since pooling of patients in large IP facilities offers economies of scale and opportunities for parallel processing, not to mention elimination of infrastructure.