Development and implementation of an operating room scheduling tool: an action research study
通过行动研究方法，在梅耶大学儿童医院开发并实施手术室排程工具，发现将患者聚类为同质手术组、灵活调整约束和目标函数等特征有助于排程器有效实施，并强调高层支持、利益相关者参与和渐进式变革的重要性。
In this study, we report the results of an action research project whose aim was to develop and implement an operating room scheduler at the Meyer University Children’s Hospital. The study offers insights into the features that make an MSS optimisation model and scheduler effective and easy to implement, and shed light on those actions facilitating their introduction and use. Specifically, it suggests that creating an effective operating room scheduler requires clustering patients in homogeneous surgery groups and developing a flexible tool that allows: scheduling surgery groups instead of actual patients, easily adding/removing constraints, changing the objective function(s) and adjusting the planning horizon. In addition, it posits that gaining the commitment of top management by showing credible preliminary results, inferring stakeholder preferences by letting them comment on tentative schedules, introducing changes gradually and involving staff at lower levels of the hospital hierarchy can significantly facilitate the scheduler development and implementation.