title: Optimization and planning of operating theatre activities: an original definition of pathways and process modeling.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Operating Room (OR) is a key resource of all major hospitals, but it also accounts for up 40% of resource costs. Improving cost effectiveness, while maintaining a quality of care, is a universal objective. These goals imply an optimization of planning and a scheduling of the activities involved. This is highly challenging due to the inherent variable and unpredictable nature of surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  A Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 2.0) was used for the representation of the "OR Process" (being defined as the sequence of all of the elementary steps between "patient ready for surgery" to "patient operated upon") as a general pathway ("path"). The path was then both further standardized as much as possible and, at the same time, keeping all of the key-elements that would allow one to address or define the other steps of planning, and the inherent and wide variability in terms of patient specificity. The path was used to schedule OR activity, room-by-room, and day-by-day, feeding the process from a "waiting list database" and using a mathematical optimization model with the objective of ending up in an optimized planning.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The OR process was defined with special attention paid to flows, timing and resource involvement. Standardization involved a dynamics operation and defined an expected operating time for each operation. The optimization model has been implemented and tested on real clinical data. The comparison of the results reported with the real data, shows that by using the optimization model, allows for the scheduling of about 30% more patients than in actual practice, as well as to better exploit the OR efficiency, increasing the average operating room utilization rate up to 20%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The optimization of OR activity planning is essential in order to manage the hospital's waiting list. Optimal planning is facilitated by defining the operation as a standard pathway where all variables are taken into account. By allowing a precise scheduling, it feeds the process of planning and, further up-stream, the management of a waiting list in an interactive and bi-directional dynamic process.
authors.affiliation: Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Piazza San Onofrio 4, Rome, 00165, Italy.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barbagallo
authors.affiliation: Nextage s.r.l, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Corradi
authors.affiliation: Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Piazza San Onofrio 4, Rome, 00165, Italy.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Ville de Goyet
authors.affiliation: Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Piazza San Onofrio 4, Rome, 00165, Italy.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iannucci
authors.affiliation: Nextage s.r.l, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Porro
authors.affiliation: Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Piazza San Onofrio 4, Rome, 00165, Italy. nicola.rosso@opbg.net.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rosso
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics and Business Studies, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tanfani
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics and Business Studies, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Testi
mesh_terms: D019091:Critical Pathways / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000592:standards*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards