OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT TOOLS APPLIED TO THE OPERATING ROOM: A REVIEW OF CURRENT CONCEPTS AND A SINGLE CENTRE EXPERIENCE

Operations management tools can be applied to the operating room setting in order to improve throughput of the system. This is important because of the limitation of resources and funds available to hospitals in the public healthcare system. Hospitals must deal with variability in demand and uncertainty surrounding scheduling; these considerations can be placed in a queuing theory framework to better design processing capacity to minimize wait times and maximize utilization. Lean techniques can be used to identify and reduce waste in processes. A single centre experience is presented to demonstrate real-world application of these tools and to suggest foci for potential improvement in other centres.