skip to main content
10.5555/1218112.1218192acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageswscConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Simulation of a multiple operating room surgical suite

Published: 03 December 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Outpatient surgery scheduling involves the coordination of several activities in an uncertain environment. Due to the very customized nature of surgical procedures there is significant uncertainty in the duration of activities related to the intake process, surgical procedure, and recovery process. Furthermore, there are multiple criteria which must be traded off when considering how to schedule surgical procedures including patient waiting, operating room (OR) team waiting, OR idling, and overtime for the surgical suite. Uncertainty combined with the need to tradeoff many criteria makes scheduling a complex task for OR managers. In this article we present a simulation model for a multiple OR surgical suite, describe some of the scheduling challenges, and illustrate how the model can be used as a decisions aid to improve strategic and operational decision making relating to the delivery of surgical services. All results presented are based on real data collected at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

References

[1]
Bailey, N. 1952. A study of queues and appointment systems in hospital outpatient departments, with special reference to waiting-times. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A14:185--189.
[2]
Blake, J. T., and M. Carter. 1997. Surgical process scheduling: A structured review. Journal of the Society of Health Systems 5 (3): 17--30.
[3]
Blake, J. T., and J. Donald. 2002. Mount Sinai hospital uses integer programming to allocate operating room time. Interfaces 32 (2): 63--73.
[4]
Bowers, J., and G. Mould. 2005. Ambulatory care and orthopaedic capacity planning. Health Care Management Science 8:41--47.
[5]
CAB 2001. Surgical services reform: Executive briefing for clinical leaders. Technical report, Washington D.C.: Clinical Advisory Board.
[6]
Charnetski, J. 1984. Scheduling operating room surgical procedure with early and late completion penalty costs. Journal of Operations Management 5:91--102.
[7]
Denton, B. T., and D. Gupta. 2003. A sequential bounding approach for optimal appointment scheduling. IIE Transactions 35:1003--1016.
[8]
Denton, B. T., and A. Vogl. 2006. Stochastic optimization of surgery sequencing and start time scheduling decisions. Working Paper.
[9]
Dexter, F., R. H. Epstein, and E. Marcon. 2005. Strategies to reduce delays in admission into a post anesthesia care unit from operating rooms. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing 20 (2): 92--102.
[10]
Dexter, F., J. Ledolter, and R. E. Wachtel. 2005. Tactical decision making for selective expansion of operating room resources incorporating financial criteria and uncertainty in subspecialtys future workload. Anesthesia & Analgesia 100:1425--1432.
[11]
Dexter, F., A. Macario, R. D. Traub, M. Hopwood, and D. A. Lubarsky. 1999. An operating room scheduling strategy to maximize the use of operating room block time: Computer simulation of patient scheduling and survey of patient preferences for surgical waiting time. Anesthesia & Analgesia 89:7--20.
[12]
Glover, F., and G. Kochenberger. 2003. Handbook of heuristics. Kluwer.
[13]
Goldman, J., H. A. Knappenberger, and W. J. Shearson. 1970. A study of the variability of surgical estimates. Hospital Management 110:46--46D.
[14]
HFMA 2005. Achieving operating room efficiency through process integration. Technical report, Health Care Financial Management Association Report.
[15]
Ho, C.-J., and H.-S. Lau. 1992. Minimizing total cost in scheduling outpatient appointments. Management Science 38:750--764.
[16]
Jansson, B. 1966. Choosing a good appointment system - a study of queues of the type (d,m,1). Operations Research 14:292--312.
[17]
Lovejoy, W. S., and Y. Li. 2002. Hospital operating room capacity expansion. Management Science 48 (11): 1369--1387.
[18]
Magerlein, J. M., and J. B. Martin. 1978. Surgical demand scheduling: A review. Health Services Research 13 (4): 418--433.
[19]
Mercer, A. 1973. Queues with scheduled arrivals: A correction simplification and extension. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B 35:104--116.
[20]
NAE 2005. Building a better delivery system: A new engineering/health care partnership. Technical report, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine.
[21]
Przasnyski, Z. 1986. Operating room scheduling: A literature review. AORN Journal 44 (1): 67--79.
[22]
Robinson, L. W., Y. Gerchak, and D. Gupta. 1996. Appointment times which minimize waiting and facility idleness. Technical report, McMaster University. Working Paper.
[23]
Rohleder, T. R., and K. J. Klassen. 2002. Rolling horizon appointment scheduling: A simulation study. Health Care Management Science 5:201--209.
[24]
Sabria, F., and C. F. Daganzo. 1989. Approximate expressions for queuing systems with scheduling arrivals and established service order. Transportation Science 23:159--165.
[25]
Soriano, A. 1966. Comparison of two scheduling systems. Operations Research 14:388--397.
[26]
Vanden Bosch, P. M., and D. C. Dietz. 2000. Minimizing expected waiting time in a medical appointment system. IIE Transactions 32:841--848.
[27]
Wang, P. P. 1993. Static and dynamic scheduling of customer arrivals to a single-server system. Naval Research Logistics 40:345--360.
[28]
Weiss, E. N. 1990. Models for determining the estimated start times and case orderings. IIE Transactions 22 (2): 143--150.
[29]
Welch, J. 1964. Appointment systems in hospital outpatient departments. Operations Research Quarterly 15:224--237.

Cited By

View all
  • (2016)A simulation of variability-oriented sequencing rules on block surgical schedulingProceedings of the 2016 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3042094.3042348(2030-2040)Online publication date: 11-Dec-2016
  • (2016)Scheduling operating roomsJournal of Scheduling10.1007/s10951-016-0489-619:5(493-525)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2016
  • (2015)Bi-criteria appointment scheduling of patients with heterogeneous service sequencesExpert Systems with Applications: An International Journal10.1016/j.eswa.2015.01.01342:8(4029-4041)Online publication date: 15-May-2015
  • Show More Cited By
  1. Simulation of a multiple operating room surgical suite

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    WSC '06: Proceedings of the 38th conference on Winter simulation
    December 2006
    2429 pages
    ISBN:1424405017

    Sponsors

    • IIE: Institute of Industrial Engineers
    • ASA: American Statistical Association
    • IEICE ESS: Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, Engineering Sciences Society
    • IEEE-CS\DATC: The IEEE Computer Society
    • SIGSIM: ACM Special Interest Group on Simulation and Modeling
    • NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology
    • (SCS): The Society for Modeling and Simulation International
    • INFORMS-CS: Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences-College on Simulation

    Publisher

    Winter Simulation Conference

    Publication History

    Published: 03 December 2006

    Check for updates

    Qualifiers

    • Article

    Conference

    WSC06
    Sponsor:
    • IIE
    • ASA
    • IEICE ESS
    • IEEE-CS\DATC
    • SIGSIM
    • NIST
    • (SCS)
    • INFORMS-CS
    WSC06: Winter Simulation Conference 2006
    December 3 - 6, 2006
    California, Monterey

    Acceptance Rates

    WSC '06 Paper Acceptance Rate 177 of 252 submissions, 70%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 3,413 of 5,075 submissions, 67%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)2
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
    Reflects downloads up to 07 Mar 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2016)A simulation of variability-oriented sequencing rules on block surgical schedulingProceedings of the 2016 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3042094.3042348(2030-2040)Online publication date: 11-Dec-2016
    • (2016)Scheduling operating roomsJournal of Scheduling10.1007/s10951-016-0489-619:5(493-525)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2016
    • (2015)Bi-criteria appointment scheduling of patients with heterogeneous service sequencesExpert Systems with Applications: An International Journal10.1016/j.eswa.2015.01.01342:8(4029-4041)Online publication date: 15-May-2015
    • (2014)Surgery rescheduling using discrete event simulationProceedings of the 2014 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/2693848.2694024(1365-1376)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2014
    • (2014)Variability based surgical schedulingProceedings of the 2014 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/2693848.2694023(1353-1364)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2014
    • (2011)Managing patient backlog in a surgical suite that uses a block-booking scheduling systemProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/2431518.2431676(1319-1329)Online publication date: 11-Dec-2011
    • (2009)Modeling and simulation of cataract surgery processesWinter Simulation Conference10.5555/1995456.1995723(1937-1945)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2009
    • (2009)Input modeling for hospital simulation models using electronic messagesWinter Simulation Conference10.5555/1995456.1995480(134-147)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2009
    • (2008)Using simulation in the implementation of an outpatient procedure centerProceedings of the 40th Conference on Winter Simulation10.5555/1516744.1517015(1547-1552)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2008
    • (2007)Bi-criteria evaluation of an outpatient procedure center via simulationProceedings of the 39th conference on Winter simulation: 40 years! The best is yet to come10.5555/1351542.1351810(1510-1518)Online publication date: 9-Dec-2007

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media