Managing patient backlog in a surgical suite that uses a block-booking scheduling system

Authors:
Oleg V. Shylo;Louis Luangkesorn;Oleg A. Prokopyev;Jayant Rajgopal;Andrew Schaefer
Affiliations:
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Venue:
Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference
Year:
2011

Citing 4
Cited 1

Surgical unit time utilization review: resource utilization and management implications

Journal of Medical Systems
Simulation of a multiple operating room surgical suite

Proceedings of the 38th conference on Winter simulation
Optimal Allocation of Surgery Blocks to Operating Rooms Under Uncertainty

Operations Research
Systematic Review of the Use of Computer Simulation Modeling of Patient Flow in Surgical Care

Journal of Medical Systems

Stochastic Operating Room Scheduling for High-Volume Specialties Under Block Booking

INFORMS Journal on Computing

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Abstract

Effective scheduling of elective cases in an operating room suite is a challenging task due to inherent uncertainty and competing performance metrics. In this paper, we present a simulation model for the surgical suite within the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System (VAPHS) that is used to evaluate and optimize different scheduling policies. A flexible set of probabilistic scheduling rules is evaluated and a dynamic scheduling policy is proposed as an alternative to static strategies. The dynamic scheduling policy allows us to reduce the variance in patient waiting times and backlogs. The developed simulation model is based on the data collected at the VAPHS.