A Mathematical Model for Operating Room Scheduling Considering Limitations on Human Resources Access and Patient Prioritization

Abstract

Operating room scheduling is an important task in healthcare sector. This study proposes a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) mathematical model for the scheduling of the operating rooms. In the presented model, apart from scheduling the patients’ surgery process, shifting of the medical staff is also carried out. The innovation considered in the proposed model is aimed at prioritizing patients in the operation process, according to the priority and level of the patient’s emergencies, and operating room treatment processes. Ultimately, the proposed model is assessed with random data and in addition to scheduling patients based on the level of service delivery priority, the medical staff have been scheduled, as well. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis results reveal that the proposed model is very sensitive to preoperative preparation times and this bottleneck needs to be improved in the hospitals. On the other hand, this study presents solutions to improve the operating room scheduling and improving the status of patient services to management and optimize operating room scheduling that result in satisfied patients.