A Bibliometric Analysis on No-Show Research: Status, Hotspots, Trends and Outlook

• Main Authors: Cheng Wang, Runhua Wu, Lili Deng, Yong Chen, Yingde Li, Yuehua Wan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: health-care; no-shows; bibliometrics; appointment system; appointment scheduling; overbooking
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/10/3997

No-show is a thorny issue within the social scope. It not only affects the sustainability of service system operation but also causes heavy irretrievable losses. To maintain and develop the sustainability of service, this paper adopts bibliometric technology to reflect the current status and future prospects about no-show research. And we strive to explore and summarize appointment scheduling methods for no-show problems. The bibliometric analysis was carried out from various aspects including research areas, countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors and author keywords based on papers harvested from Web of Science Core Collection database. The total 1197 papers show that the United States is in a leading position in this field, followed by England and Canada. University of London is the most productive institution with the highest total citations and H-Index. <i>BMC Health Services Research</i> ranks first as the most productive journal, followed by <i>European Journal of Operational Research</i> and <i>Production and Operations Management</i>. Through the analysis of hot articles, we can conclude that how to reduce the impact of no-shows on the sustainability of service systems has become the main research direction. In addition to appointment scheduling, other effective methods are also mentioned. Further study on these methods will be a major research direction in the future.