Reducing Wait Times through Operations Research: Optimizing the Use of Surge Capacity

Widespread public demand for improved access, political pressure for shorter wait times, a stretched workforce, an aging population and overutilized equipment and facilities challenge healthcare leaders to adopt new management approaches. This paper highlights the significant benefits that can be achieved by applying operations research (OR) methods to healthcare management. It shows how queuing theory provides managers with insights into the causes for excessive wait times and the relationship between wait times and capacity. It provides a case study of the use of several OR methods, including Markov decision processes, linear programming and simulation, to optimize the scheduling of patients with multiple priorities. The study shows that by applying this approach, wait time targets can be attained with the judicious use of surge capacity in the form of overtime. It concludes with some policy insights.