title: Scheduling elective surgeries: the tradeoff among bed capacity, waiting patients and operating room utilization using goal programming.
abstract: Scheduling of surgeries in the operating rooms under limited competing resources such as surgical and nursing staff, anesthesiologist, medical equipment, and recovery beds in surgical wards is a complicated process. A well-designed schedule should be concerned with the welfare of the entire system by allocating the available resources in an efficient and effective manner. In this paper, we develop an integer linear programming model in a manner useful for multiple goals for optimally scheduling elective surgeries based on the availability of surgeons and operating rooms over a time horizon. In particular, the model is concerned with the minimization of the following important goals: (1) the anticipated number of patients waiting for service; (2) the underutilization of operating room time; (3) the maximum expected number of patients in the recovery unit; and (4) the expected range (the difference between maximum and minimum expected number) of patients in the recovery unit. We develop two goal programming (GP) models: lexicographic GP model and weighted GP model. The lexicographic GP model schedules operating rooms when various preemptive priority levels are given to these four goals. A numerical study is conducted to illustrate the optimal master-surgery schedule obtained from the models. The numerical results demonstrate that when the available number of surgeons and operating rooms is known without error over the planning horizon, the proposed models can produce good schedules and priority levels and preference weights of four goals affect the resulting schedules. The results quantify the tradeoffs that must take place as the preemptive-weights of the four goals are changed.
authors.affiliation: School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China. xyli@tongji.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiangyong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Rice Lake Canada ULC, Calgary, AB, T2G 5C3, Canada.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rafaliya
authors.affiliation: Odette School of Business, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ON, N9B 3P4, Canada.
authors.forename: M Fazle
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Baki
authors.affiliation: Odette School of Business, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ON, N9B 3P4, Canada.
authors.forename: Ben A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Chaouch
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D017558:Elective Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006742:Hospital Bed Capacity; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D061646:Operative Time; D011997:Recovery Room / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors; D014850:Waiting Lists
keywords: Elective patients; Goal programming; Master surgery scheduling; Operating room; Recovery unit