Surgical demand scheduling: a review.
This article reviews the literature on scheduling of patient demand for surgery and outlines an approach to improving overall performance of hospital surgical suites. Reported scheduling systems are categorized into those that schedule patients in advance of the surgical date and those that schedule available patients on the day of surgery. Approaches to estimating surgical procedure times are also reviewed, and the article concludes with a discussion of the failure to implement the majority of reported scheduling schemes.
D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D001509:Bed Occupancy; D003363:Cost Control; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006748:Hospital Departments / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010343:Patient Admission; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013503:Surgery Department, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States