Surgery Planning and Scheduling

In 2007, total health-care spending in the United States reached US $2.3 trillion, and continues to rise at the fastest rate in US history. The design and implementation of better planning and scheduling systems is an important area to study in order to reduce high costs and improve access to services in the health-care system. Surgery scheduling, in particular, is an area with significant potential for realizing greater efficiencies. Poor scheduling prevents health-care providers from matching patient demand with available capacity, causing inefficient use of resources, decreased return on investment, and long waiting lists for patients. It has been estimated that surgery accounts for more than 40% of a hospital’s total revenues and expenses. Recent studies indicate that resource utilization, overtime, and on-time start performance within surgical suites could be improved at most hospitals. These important performance measures are influenced in part by the surgery scheduling systems and policies that are used in practice. Surgery scheduling systems impact a variety of expensive resources including operating rooms (ORs), the postanesthesia care unit (PACU), intensive care unit (ICU), hospital beds, equipment resources such as mobile diagnostic imaging devices, and human resources including surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, and other staff. The unpredictable nature of surgery results in uncertainty in the duration of surgery and patient recovery. This can be caused by many factors including the varying experience of surgeons and OR teams, the presence of residents or surgical fellows in