Levelled bed occupancy and controlled waiting lists using Master surgical schedules

Scheduling surgical patients is one of the complex organizational tasks hospitals face daily. Master surgical scheduling is one way to optimize utilization of scarce resources and to create a more predictable outflow from the operating room towards subsequent hospital departments. The paper addresses two aims. First, we investigate the effect of the length of the planning horizon and other planning parameters in a master surgical scheduling approach on patients ́ waiting time, schedule stability and hospital efficiency. Second, the master surgical scheduling approach is compared with a standard operating room planning approach on levelled bed occupancy. The assignment of patients to a master surgical schedule is carefully described. Using real case data from a regional hospital in the Netherlands a simulation study is performed. The approach is applicable to any other hospital. Results show that only the planning horizon has substantial influence on outcome parameters waiting time, schedule stability and hospital efficiency. We found that increasing the planning horizon increases patients’ waiting time on the one hand, but also increases schedule stability and hospital efficiency on the other hand. Regarding our second aim, we found that using an MSS substantially decreases variability in bed occupancy levels.