Scheduling surgical specialties: Leveling the bed occupancy through stochastic master surgery scheduling

This research addresses the operational challenges faced by the Sophia Children’s Hospital through a comprehensive analysis of its current state, literature review, and mathematical modeling. A model is created that produces a master surgery schedule, allowing for the allocation of patients to specific specialties, operating rooms, and days. Our...

Operating Room Scheduling during COVID-19: An advice on planning models in the Reinier de Graaf hospital

During the first COVID-19 wave in the Netherlands, hospitals had to scale down their elective care all over the hospital to make room for COVID-19 patients. Even the Operating Room (OR) reduced their surgeries to acute care. It is, however, hard to define how much the OR should downscale. Also, there are no national plans on how hospitals should...

Intraoperative remaining surgery duration estimation to improve operating room scheduling: The creation and evaluation of an estimation system

One of the main elements for creating an optimal operating room schedule is an accurate surgery duration estimation. Currently, this estimation is only done preoperatively. However, multiple factors during the surgery itself could influence the duration, for example bleeding. Literature showed the possibility of intraoperatively estimating a...

Creating an optimal OR schedule regarding downstream resources

A high percentage of hospital admissions is due to surgical interventions. The operating theatre, which holds the operating rooms (ORs), is therefore one of the key resources in hospitals. Managing the operating theatre and finding an optimal OR schedule is complex due to the many factors that influence it. Scheduling a surgery in an OR...