A robust optimization approach for operating room scheduling considering emergency surgeries and downstream resource constraint

In recent years, the field of health has received much attention. Operating rooms (OR) are of importance because they have a fundamental effect on hospital revenues and expenditures. Therefore, OR scheduling is a particular topic in hospital management. This paper proposes a bi-objective optimization model for scheduling operating room with the limited capacity of intensive care unit (ICU) with priority to emergency surgeries. This model maximizes the number of surgeries scheduled and minimizes the related costs. The inherent uncertainty in surgery durations and the length of stay (LOS) in the ICU leads to idle or overtime of operating room that generate more costs. Robust optimization is applied to deal with uncertainty in surgery duration and LOS in ICU. Results indicated that as the robustness level of the problem increases in the uncertain mode, the value of the objective function increases, and achieving the optimal scheduling would require more costs.

Keywords:

OR in Health Services , Surgery Scheduling , Downstream Resource Constraint , Robust Optimization