Letter to Editor: Previous research in operating room scheduling and staffing

Abstract

Persson and Persson describe operating room scheduling wherein patients receive care within days [1]. The paper is similar to our work published in 2000 [2]. We speculate that the similarity arises from the authors’ assumptions being reasonable and realistic, as were ours. The insensitivity of results to the “on line” bin packing algorithm was published the preceding year (1999) [3], as was the requirement from the practical requirement from the integer nature of the problem to use at least a four-week period [4]. Persson and Persson are modeling the efficiency of use of OR time and yet lack the advances made in the >100 papers using those techniques since publication of Strum et al.’s 1999 paper [5]. Our 2000 paper [2] combined the research published independently in 1999. The paper from 2000 has 31 citations so reasonably could have been found by literature review. The two papers from 1999, on which the 2000 paper was based, have 42 and 77 citations, respectively.