Reducing patient tardiness: From experiment to implementation

A randomized field experiment compares two penalties for late-arriving patients. Moving late patients to the end of the queue reduces tardiness and improves compliance with recommended arrival times, while a fixed-place penalty has little effect; a broader hospital implementation produces consistent results.

Wei Gu, Meng Li, Shichen Zhang (2026). Reducing patient tardiness: From experiment to implementation. Production and Operations Management 35(5), 1630–1647.