Penn State Hershey Operating Room Optimization

Overview

Penn State Hershey Medical Center performs around 100-150 operations a day throughout 29 operating rooms. These operating rooms run on a planned schedule that is adjusted each day due to variability in length of operations, turnaround time, cancellations, and the inevitable occurrence of emergency operations that must bump other cases to either be done later or in another operating room. Since elective cases are very profitable and emergency cases can be very expensive it is important to be able to optimize the operating room schedule.

Objectives

Penn State Hershey Medical Center is aiming to design a prototype simulation of the scheduling and utilization of hospital operating rooms using various data science and statistical techniques that would allow them to test different scheduling and implementation strategies. These implementation strategies include ways to bump emergency cases and scheduling optimization strategies. This model is ideally going to be a foundation for the hospital to build off and add to. It will ultimately display what the planned schedule was for each day and what actually happened.

Approach

– Understand how the hospital schedules and runs the operating rooms

– Gather data from sponsor that includes all necessary factors that are needed for the model

– This would include past surgeries start and end times, operating rooms, and case type

– Sort through the data to understand it, and ask any questions regarding irregularities

– Sort the data to be usable in the making of the model

– Utilize Kernel Density Estimation, stochastic processes, and Monte Carlo simulations, along with the data provided to create and prototype that predicts what each operating room schedule will look like in the future based on the previous schedules

– Model the predicted schedule to display with the actual schedule as it happens

– Document the code to increase usability and understanding for the sponsor

Outcomes

– The sponsor will be able to use this model to test different scheduling strategies and the best way to bump cases when emergency cases occur

– This model will allow Hershey Medical to see how well each strategy works best and has minimal effect on the planned schedule when an emergency case occurs in order to maximize profit.