CORMSIS/SORG Seminar - Healthcare Logistics Seminar

Event details

Abstract of the talk: Healthcare logistics addresses the efficient planning, realization and control of patient-, material- and information-flow within the healthcare sector. Therefore, the use of Operations Research methods plays a crucial role in healthcare logistics. However, the unique feature in this field of application is to not only put emphasis upon the economic efficiency but also to take into account the quality of care and patient satisfaction. Accordingly, the medical competence is never interfered in. Especially in hospitals, scheduling problems and in-house logistics are of great importance. With the help of medical and technical devices patients are examined, treated and cured if possible. Hospital logistics are all technical and organizational measures that are needed to transfer patients from an initial state (“ill”) into a final state (in the best case “healthy”) while also regarding the corresponding goods and information. Usually, hospital processes are grown historically (“We have always done it this way.”). Consequently, processes have not been analyzed critically until reforms of the health system have put increasing pressure on hospitals. Nowadays, hospitals are looking for possibilities to improve their processes. Therefore, the success of logistics concepts in hospitals lies in resource conservation for non-value-adding activities (not directly relevant for the healing process, e.g., administrative work) and high resource utilization for value-adding activities (e.g., surgery) while the personnel shall not be over-utilized (i.e., no overtime). Moreover, the interaction of appropriate logistics concepts with modern OR models allow a patient centered treatment, by respecting the needs of a patient and allowing a smoother process. Moreover, the digitalization of the health care sector offers new opportunities to OR. Clinical pathways should determine an optimal sequence and schedule for the patient’s treatment with the objective of minimizing delays and maximizing the quality of care while taking into account resource capacities. To reach this goal, logistics aspects on different hierarchical levels as hospital layout planning (strategic), appointment planning (tactical) and patient transportation (operational) have to be integrated into the clinical pathway. In this talk, we give an overview on how OR methods can be used in order to support process optimization in healthcare organizations. We focus on healthcare logistics applications arising in different healthcare sectors and dealing with different time scales. Examples include: Hospital layout planning, Appointment planning, Patient transportation, Ambulance location and Home health care. Both, OR models and numerical results – also from real world projects - will be presented. In addition, we will give some advice on how teaching in OR for Health Care could be done.