Reducing Specialist Wait Times: What Can We Learn from Highway Traffic Engineers?

Waiting times for specialist visits in the United States are increasing, and many organizations are responding by seeking to hire more physicians. However, regional data on the supply of physicians in various specialties and waiting times suggest that this approach alone is unlikely to be effective and may even worsen the problem. This observation is consistent with the dynamics observed when lanes are added to highways but fail to reduce congestion because drivers’ thresholds for using the highways are lowered. Meeting this challenge will most likely require other tactics (analogous to those used to solve traffic congestion) that change the way specialists use their time, incorporate advanced practice providers, and take advantage of advances in information technology.