Towards An Optimal Mix In Planning and Scheduling Of Operating Theatres

The absolute necessity to offer a constant high level of medical services to patients, notwithstanding the precariousness of resources as well as economy, is pushing healthcare managers/administrators towards increasing interest in worthy of admiration tools successfully applied into the industrial frame. It is uncovering the usefulness to apply operations management and scheduling approaches to services. Starting from a discrete event simulation model of real emergency facilities, the present paper deals with allocation scheduling in operating theatres framed to day care patient’s arrival rate and pathological circumstances. It studies the impact of forecast and resources rationalization and calls and optimal arrangement for bed assignment and operating room services. A weekly time bucket has been used in planning. A daily based server mix and patient rate, in Cork University Hospital – Ireland, with different types of patient and multiple servers, which are either specialist and/or cross trained, will be analyzed. The application of an approach for optimization was used to evaluate alternative configurations in order to anticipate favourable assessments and to prevent mislaid of time and resources and quality. Fitting system constraints, a queuing network in multi-agent approach has been formulated. Parameters such as staff assessment, rota, paths, personnel management as well as turnover, equipment and instrument configuration have been taken into consideration. Moreover, decide on the right mix of flexible and dedicated equipments is part of designing the service in medical delivery system. Hence, strategic system and human resources flexibility in services are going to be investigated. The impact of replacing dedicated servers by flexible ones will be evaluated. The flexible capacity will be quantified and patients expectation in terms of waiting time will be shielded. The right level of flexibility of health care services, enabling decision makers to improve system performance in accordance with strategic objectives, will be evaluated. Taking into account the service delivery and medical staff availability and the patient downtime cost, the authors will show that total flexibility is not always the best choice. As final output, authors are proposing a viable tool, i.e., synoptic prospect, which can give managers and planners the opportunity to identify, measure and test, ex ante, the booked feasibility and system availability in terms of flexibility in operating care services, hence enabling them to improve system performance in accordance with strategic objectives and forecast and overcrowding.