Managerial Decision-making for Daily Case Allocation Scheduling and the Impact on Perioperative Quality Assurance

Allocation scheduling for daily surgical cases is a decision-making process tasked to anesthesiologists and nurse managers in the operating room (OR). This manuscript focuses on three major areas: the classification and principles of allocation scheduling on workdays in China, flexible strategies of operational decision-making given differences in planned versus actual OR allocations, and perioperative quality implications of anesthesia scheduling. Improved quality and optimal decision-making in daily surgical case scheduling is seen with shift supervisor-based scheduling of staff and cases when compared with staff and case scheduling managed by the departmental director or chief resident.