OPERATING ROOM SCHEDULING: CASE STUDY OF NUH ENDOSCOPY CENTRE

Abstract

Over the years, in order to cope with the increasing demand for healthcare services, hospitals are seeking to improve their patient throughput by reducing patient turnover time, expanding capacity or by improving utilization of existing resources. In this study, we seek to rectify the problem of underutilization of the endoscopy operating rooms (ORs) of the NUH Endoscopy Centre by optimizing its OR schedule. This is achieved by a better reallocation of OR time among the surgeons. Using a genetic algorithm approach, we determine an optimum redistribution of OR time and come up with a new OR schedule. The concept of chaining is then incorporated into the OR schedule by introducing shared OR time slots. This enhanced flexibility will hopefully allow for better utilization of existing capacity.