Generic operational models in health service operations management: A systematic review

Abstract The area of Health Services Operations Management has received considerable attention in scientific literature over the past decades. Numerous articles have appeared in health services operations management literature in which models of health operations are used. In this paper we review this wide body of literature with the aim of synthesizing evidence on application of generic operational models in health services. A generic operational model is defined as a formal description of operations performed to deliver a health service that is applicable in a wide range of health service delivery settings. The systematic review of the literature which forms the basis of our research synthesis includes peer reviewed publications from business management databases (SCOPUS) as well as medical databases (Pubmed). Our search resulted in more than 4000 recent papers of which 116 papers met the inclusion criteria. This paper reports our synthesis from the included papers on four main questions: 1) why are models used? 2) what is modeled? 3) what models are used and how are they developed? 4) what are the achievements? Our systematic review reveals that few papers report achievements which qualify as empirical evidence to guide the application of operational models for health services. Nevertheless, the synthesis leads to an initial framework for operational modeling in health services to guide further research.