Decision support system for the operating room rescheduling problem.

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Healthcare Management
• Computer Science

Background:

• Operating Room (OR) schedules are frequently disrupted by variable surgery durations and emergency cases.
• Disruptions lead to elective surgery start time changes, causing issues for patients, wards, and departments.
• Existing OR scheduling often lacks flexibility to handle real-time changes effectively.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a decision support system (DSS) for optimizing OR schedule adjustments.
• To assist OR managers in selecting the best-adjusted schedules considering stakeholder preferences and resource constraints.
• To minimize deviations from stakeholder preferences during OR rescheduling.

Main Methods:

• Modeling the OR rescheduling problem as an Integer Linear Program (ILP).
• Developing a DSS incorporating decision rules derived from ILP analysis.
• Utilizing a simulation study to evaluate the DSS's performance.

Main Results:

• The ILP analysis identified surgery shifting and break scheduling as key rescheduling actions.
• The DSS demonstrated a reduction in canceled surgeries and increased patient/ward satisfaction.
• A potential increase in perceived workload for some departments was observed as a trade-off.

Conclusions:

• The developed DSS effectively assists OR managers in rescheduling, balancing stakeholder needs.
• The system improves OR schedule stability and satisfaction, despite potential workload increases.
• The DSS can also be used to assess the initial OR schedule's viability.