4 Presentations

• 
  02:30 PM - 02:52 PM

  Impact Assessment of the Integration of Nurses Timetable on the OR Planning and Scheduling

  • Christine Di Martinelly, presenter, IESEG School of Management
  • Pierre Baptiste, Polytechnique Montréal
  • Mohammad Yousef Maknoon, Polytechnique Montréal

  The objective of the paper is to better understand the link between the management of OR and nurses and to investigate the trade-off between open OR, nurses and overtime work. The approach was to model the OR scheduling while considering availabilities of surgeons and anesthesiologists and to integrate in the model elements to model or not nurses scheduling. Different scenarios were tested in order to test how our suggestion performs in comparison with some traditional approaches: OR scheduling with no constraint on nurses, teams of 2 nurses allotted to an OR, or minimization of the number of nurses. Our idea is to introduce some flexibility by asking nurses to work in teams starting at different time.

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  02:52 PM - 03:14 PM

  The Optimal Allocation of Server Time Slots over Different Classes of Patients

  • Stefan Creemers, presenter, IESEG School of Management
  • Marc Lambrecht, KU Leuven
  • Jeroen Beliën, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel

  We present a model for assigning server time slots to different classes of patients. The objective is to minimize the total expected weighted waiting time of a patient (where different patient classes may be assigned different weights). A bulk service queueing model is used to obtain the expected waiting time of a patient of a particular class, given a feasible allocation of service time slots. Using the output of the bulk service queueing models as the input of an optimization procedure, the optimal allocation scheme may be identified. For problems with a large number of patient classes and/or a large number of feasible allocation schemes, a step-wise heuristic is developed. A common example of such a system is the allocation of operating room time slots over different medical disciplines in a hospital.

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  03:14 PM - 03:36 PM

  Evaluation of Appointment Scheduling Rules: A Multi-performance Measures Approach

  • Stefan Creemers, IESEG School of Management
  • Pieter Colen, presenter, KULeuven
  • Marc Lambrecht, KU Leuven

  Appointment scheduling rules are used to determine during which service session and at what time a customer is to receive service. Many different appointment scheduling rules have been devised and are being used in practice (e.g. in healthcare, legal services, administration and many other service and manufacturing industries). Which appointment scheduling rule is best however, is still an open question. In order to answer this question, we develop an analytical model to assess the performance (w.r.t. customer waiting time, server idle time and server overtime) of appointment scheduling rules in a wide variety of settings. More specifically, the model takes into account: (1) customer unpunctuality; (2) no-shows; (3) service interruptions; (4) delay of the service process. In addition, no restriction are imposed on the distributions used to capture the basic processes (i.e. the model is not limited to the use of exponential distributions). The model builds on matrix analytical methods and adopts an efficient algorithm (in terms of computational and memory requirements) to assess the performance of 314 appointment scheduling rules. Data envelopment analysis is used to compare the results of these appointment scheduling rules.

• 
  03:36 PM - 03:58 PM

  A Case Study on the Use of Operations Reserach to Evaluate Changes in a Blood Supply Chain

  • John Blake, presenter, Dalhousie University

  Canadian Blood Services is a not-for-profit, charitable organization whose mission is to manage the supply of blood and blood products in Canada. For the past several years, the organization has been implementing a strategy to standardize processes and workflows through the amalgamation of production and testing centres. In this case study we describe how simulation and other operational research techniques were successfully used to evaluate the impact on customer service associated with the centralization of production centres in Atlantic Canada. The case study describes the problem, outlines the study methods, and provides a brief summary of results.