Operations research refers to a useful analytical method through which problems are solved, and decisions used in governing and management of organizations made. This process involves breaking down problems to their basic components that can be solved using a step by step mathematical analysis (Carter & Price, 2017). Generally, the operation research process is done in the following consecutive steps: problem identification, model construction around the problem using variables, deriving solution to the problem using the model, testing solution to ascertain and analyze the model success, and implementing the derived solution on the real problem. The principle of operation research includes waste reduction, variability reduction and reduction of complexity.
Common operation research used in healthcare
The workload in hospitals in the present is huge due to the increase in chronic diseases prevalence among the population globally (Carter & Price, 2017). This is attributed to the aging population as a result of improved healthcare. For these reasons, there is a need for better ways of disease prevention, treatment planning, proactive cares and disease diagnostic. The major concern of patients is based on healthcare traceability and safety. This has prompted the healthcare system to develop new ways of health care delivery such as telemedicine and home healthcare. However, most hospitals in the rural setup still use empirical management rather than innovative systems approaches for solving the hospital problems.
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Currently, operation research technique has been applied in several healthcare procedures such as planning of operating rooms, staffing of emergency department, screening of breast cancer patients, planning and radiotherapy treatment, scheduling and planning of a long-term health care, and home healthcare planning (Brandeau, Sainfort, & Pierskalla 2004) . In the emergency department of the hospitals, operation research has played a critical role in saving lives. It has been used in ambulance selection for both emergency & elective transports, in tactical ambulance positioning, trauma function assignment, planning of shifts, in the formation of trauma teams to be dispatched to working station, and in the assignment of a helicopter to emergency incidents in different regions and states (Ahmadi-Javid, Jalali, & Klassen, 2017). In the hospital wards, operational research is used in rostering of nurses, determination of the number of beds needed for the patients, for pulling and unpooling of wards, planning of nurse supplies and cleaning of the beds.
In several hospitals, the scheduling of cancer patients into the oncology clinics and the flow of chemotherapy outpatient patients has been a major problem. However, this issue has been resolved in clinics by the use of operation research. In this case, simulation and optimization approaches were developed to improve the flow of chemotherapy patients and the scheduling of outpatient cancer clinics (Ahmadi-Javid, Jalali, & Klassen, 2017). A mathematical programming model that produces an everyday balanced appointment schedule for chemotherapy treatment and oncologist visit was constructed. Thereafter, a distinct activity simulation model that incorporates several complexities in the environment was developed in order to evaluate the performance of the operation performance. The numerical results of this operational operation showed that patients time of waiting in the clinic and the hospital overall working times is greatly reduced by the model. In addition, resource utilization is reduced and balanced when the operation is adopted.
References
Ahmadi-Javid, A., Jalali, Z., & Klassen, K. J. (2017). Outpatient appointment systems in healthcare: A review of optimization studies. European Journal of Operational Research , 258 (1), 3-34.
Brandeau, M. L., Sainfort, F., & Pierskalla, W. P. (Eds.). (2004). Operations research and health care: a handbook of methods and applications (Vol. 70). Springer Science & Business Media.
Carter, M. W., & Price, C. C. (2017). Operations research: a practical introduction . Crc Press.
