Since the very beginning, CHOIR members and graduation students have done many projects regarding operating room logistics and capacity management. These encompass:
- strategic level capacity management: e.g. on determining the number of surgical teams available (on call) during the night; assessment of various strategies to deal with emergency surgeries
- tactical level capacity management: e.g. the integral planning of operating rooms and wards/ICU/fysiotherapy; master surgery scheduling; development of downstream workload forecast models
- operational level scheduling: e.g. (robust) surgery scheduling; break-in moment scheduling to minimize waiting of emergency patients
- benchmarking of operating theatre departments amongst university hospitals in the Netherlands (link)
- optimization of sterile instrument logistics
- optimization of disposable material inventory
An example of a recent project is the development of machine learning algorithms for improving surgery duration forecasts, in order to improve surgery scheduling. This project is led by dr.ir. Aleida Braaksma, in collaboration with ZGT Almelo/Hengelo (see news article (in Dutch)).
In our publications many examples can be found.