A Set Packing Approach for Scheduling Elective Surgical Procedures

Summary

The efficient scheduling of surgical procedures to operating rooms in a hospital is a complex problem due to limited resources (e.g. medical staff, equipment) and conflicting objectives (e.g. reduce running costs and increase staff and patient satisfaction). A novel approach for scheduling elective surgeries over a short-term horizon is proposed which takes explicit consideration of these aspects. The problem is formulated as a set packing problem and solved optimally through column generation and constraint branching. Good results were obtained for instances from the literature.