On 2014 Jul 15, T Eugene Day commented:

This is a very high quality paper. The validation metrics are appropriate and statistically validated. The data collection is high quality, and the model supports the conclusions the authors assert. The incorporation of patient punctuality, and separating it by new and follow-up distributions, is a particularly elegant piece.

And then, finally, they showed what happened when a simulated strategy was implemented in the real world, which is missing in a lot of the literature. One quibble there is that the table showing the results isn't completely clear. I'd like to see something along the lines of {Pre-implementation Real World, Simulated Performance Prediction, Post-Implementation Real World, Statistical test of Sim to Post-I Real, Statistical test of Pre-I real to Post-I real}. This would make it very clear how well the prediction fared in a single table.

All around extremely important work.

On 2014 Jul 15, T Eugene Day commented:

This is a very high quality paper. The validation metrics are appropriate and statistically validated. The data collection is high quality, and the model supports the conclusions the authors assert. The incorporation of patient punctuality, and separating it by new and follow-up distributions, is a particularly elegant piece.

And then, finally, they showed what happened when a simulated strategy was implemented in the real world, which is missing in a lot of the literature. One quibble there is that the table showing the results isn't completely clear. I'd like to see something along the lines of {Pre-implementation Real World, Simulated Performance Prediction, Post-Implementation Real World, Statistical test of Sim to Post-I Real, Statistical test of Pre-I real to Post-I real}. This would make it very clear how well the prediction fared in a single table.

All around extremely important work.