Operating room scheduling with surgical team: a new approach with constraint programming and goal programming

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in health expenditures due to population growth. In this context, hospital administrators have started to look for ways to use existing resources effectively. Operating rooms are one of the most important units of a hospital. The efficient use of these units is seen as a decrease in cost items and an increase in revenues. At this point, it is aimed to use the operating rooms effectively in this study. The fact that it contains many uncertainties and many stakeholders in its structure complicates the solution process of the operating room scheduling problem. In this study, planning was made that considered the uncertainty in the operation times and the surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists in the surgical team. To solve the problem, the logical modeling power of the constraint programming method and the power of the goal programming method to stretch rigid constraints were utilized. In the first stage, the balanced assignment of the surgical team (surgeon–nurse–anesthesiologist) was carried out, while in the second stage, operations were assigned to the operating rooms. The proposed model was evaluated according to the operating rooms' utilization rates and the solution's effectiveness. The results showed that the proposed model successfully created an effective and efficient schedule.