Operating Theatre Scheduling: From the Appointment to the Suture
Speaker
Abstract
| Finding an appointment for elective surgeries in hospitals and coming up with a schedule for next-day elective surgeries are tasks that healthcare institutions and research groups have been investigating to improve the use of hospital facilities, quality of care and staff satisfaction, while reducing variable direct and indirect costs. These tasks lay the ground for how the course of events take shape during the operating day, when emergencies arise and elective surgeries take longer/shorter than expected or are cancelled. This talk emphasizes on the dependencies of these three planning levels and how dealing with all of them return a much larger optimizing potential. Three mathematical models are proposed for these different planning levels. The models take into consideration limited resource availability (e.g. staff, equipment) and its utilization, clinical priorities, surgery difficulty and hospitalization bed distribution. Quality indicators are stated for each planning level according to arising necessities in practice and the computational experience with German hospitals is discussed. The good results obtained make the models and their solutions attractive as an integral part of an interactive decision support system which can be used by hospitals. |
| Because this is a lunch meeting, do let us know before Wednesday October 3rd whether you will be present. |
| Contact information: |
| Wilco van den Heuvel |
