Progress in the Healthcare Service Innovation Project at the Tsukuba University Hospital

A joint team of hospital staff and OR/MS researchers launched a healthcare service innovation project at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, in April 2011. We plan to develop a web-based software system for bed allocation to patients by mathematical optimization in the Tsukuba University Hospital. For attaining this goal successfully, we analyze the unique medical network system of Japan and study the expectation of potential patients as well as hospital staff. This is done in parallel with the operational analysis and simulation of patient flows inside the university hospital. In this paper, we describe the scope of our project and share the first-year progress with expert participants in the conference.