Flowing through hospitals

Johanna Theresia van Essen Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Department of Applied Mathematics Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Programming Group Center for Healthcare Operations Improvement and Research Due to an aging population and increased healthcare costs, hospitals are forced to use their resources more efficiently. Practitioners in hospitals often have the idea that this will reduce the quality of care. On the contrary, one may argue that improving the efficiency should also improve the quality of care as, e.g., unnecessary waiting time is reduced or even eliminated. However, improving the efficiency in hospitals is challenging as many uncertainties have to be taken into account. In this dissertation, various solution methods that deal with these uncertainties and aim to minimize waiting times, create robust schedules, and account for the arrival of emergency patients are discussed.