Big Data Analysis for Resource-Constrained Surgical Scheduling

The scheduling of surgical operations in a hospital is a complex problem, with each surgical specialty having to satisfy their demand while competing for resources with other hospital departments. This project extends the construction of a weekly timetable, the Master Surgery Schedule, which assigns surgical specialties to operating theater sessions by taking into account the post-surgery resource requirements, primarily post-operative beds on hospital wards. Using real data from the largest teaching hospital in Wales, UK, this paper describes how SAS ® has been used to analyze large data sets to investigate the relationship between the operating theater schedule and the demand for beds on wards in the hospital. By understanding this relationship, a more well-informed and robust operating theater schedule can be produced that delivers economic benefit to the hospital and a better experience for the patients by reducing the number of cancelled operations caused by the unavailability of beds on hospital wards.