An analytical model for performance evaluation of operating room schedules in orthopedic surgery

In orthopedic surgery department, multiple surgeries are carried out in the same operating room every day. Each surgery may have a random duration, differs from the scheduled time, which results in room idle time and patient waiting time. One of the major factors affecting the idle and waiting times is the schedule of surgeries in the operating room. To better sequence of surgeries to reduce idle time and waiting time, an effective performance evaluation method is needed. Although discrete event simulation can be used to evaluate the performance of surgery schedules, it suffers from long simulation time, which makes difficult in scheduling optimization. In this paper, an analytical model to evaluate the performance of operating room schedules in orthopedic surgery department is introduced. Using such a model, the expected idle time and waiting time for a given surgery schedule can be calculated accurately. Such a work provides substantial easiness for optimization of operating room schedules and investigation of the impact of different schedules.