Operating room orchestration by using agent-based simulation

Abstract

Background: Increasing demand and costs of healthcare services become a serious problem in healthcare systems. Due to the high demand for surgical interventions, operating room (OR) is the heart of hospital with 60�70 of admissions. Operating room resource orchestration as a resource management and performance measurement techniques has considerable effects on its performance. Method: Agent-based simulation is an effective approach to model complex systems. As there are many agents interacting in operating room during a surgery, we can consider an OR as a complex system. In this research, we architected and developed an agent based model considering all different units and actors involving in surgery in the OR. Results: By identifying operating room bottlenecks and consulting with experts, several improving scenarios were developed and finally combined scenario had most effect on total patient waiting time, total patient recovery time and total patient staying at the system by reduction of 9 min, 10 min and 21 min respectively. Conclusion: The result suggested that we can make significant improvements by in-depth understanding of operating room, orchestration concepts and finally doing simulation. © 2019 Elsevier Inc