British experience with operations research in the health services.

OPERATIONS research and its companion activities, management science and systems research, have found wide use in many governmental and industrial organizations. The objective of these activities is the application of the scientific method to the study of the complex operations carried out by these organizations and, ultimately, through such studies, to provide the administrators and executives with a quantitative basis for making decisions. The motivation for using these techniques has varied widely. Generally speaking, an effectively functioning organization with no external challenges may find little reason for employing operations research. On the other hand, outside pressures, such as business competition or grave military threats, may provide a strong incentive for increasing efficiency and, under those circumstances, the heads of the affected organizations will readily make use of any proven method for increasing the effectiveness of their groups. It is no surprise,. therefore, that some of the most successful work in operations research occurred in military applications during World War II when, due to the military emergency, scientists were brought in to study all aspects of military operations. However, less publicized but equally important results have been achieved in business applications, especially in the United States, since the end of the war. As yet, the health systems, both private and governmental, have made only sparing use of operations research. FLAGLE has recently surveyed s,ome of the problems in the health field which should be amenable to operations research [l]. He suggests in his paper that the administration of health systems, particularly hospitals, represents one of these ‘troubled areas’ where rising political and economic pressures are forcing the organizations affected to make serious efforts to revise their systems and improve their effectiveness. By and large, hospital administrators recognize the magnitude of these problems and are attempting to cope with them on a day-to-day basis without recourse to analytical studies. A few hospitals have been fortunate enough to have access to qualified operations research teams and have recognized the value of using specialized groups to study their