Staff planning for operating rooms with different surgical services lines

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Healthcare Management
• Industrial Engineering

Background:

• Surgical departments face complex staff planning challenges.
• Balancing staff allocation, pooling, and overtime is critical for efficiency.
• Current practices may lead to delays and suboptimal resource utilization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a two-phase mathematical model for surgical staff planning.
• To optimize the allocation of nurse circulators and surgical scrub technicians.
• To minimize delays caused by staff unavailability and reduce reliance on staff pooling.

Main Methods:

• A two-phase optimization model was developed.
• Phase I: Budgeting staff hours per service line considering constraints.
• Phase II: Allocating budgeted hours across days/shifts with a heuristic for efficiency.
• Implementation using hospital surgical data and simulation.

Main Results:

• The proposed model effectively reduces delays associated with staff unavailability.
• It also minimizes the need for staff pooling.
• The model achieves these improvements without necessitating an increase in overall workforce size.
• Comparison with current practices shows significant benefits.

Conclusions:

• The two-phase model offers an effective solution for surgical staff planning.
• It enhances operational efficiency by optimizing staff allocation and scheduling.
• A decision-support tool can further refine planning decisions.