Essays on optimisation models in healthcare operations management

Abstract

This thesis focusses on optimisation models in healthcare operations management. The body of this work is comprised of six essays. The first essay is a comprehensive literature review on healthcare operations. This essay identified healthcare scheduling as one the most important theme and rest of essays focus on this theme. newlineThe second essay studies the multiple operation theatre (OT) problem with total expected disturbance (MOTED). The MOTED problem corresponds to scheduling (allocation and sequencing) of elective surgeries to multiple OTs while accommodating emergency patients. This essay assumes that all OTs newlineare equipped with all necessary resources to perform all surgeries. The objective function of this essay is minimisation of total expected disturbance (TED). newlineThe third essay takes further the work of second eassy. The third essay unlike the second essay solves the MOTED problem while considering that all OTs are not equally equipped. It means that not all category of surgeries can be conducted in all OTs. newlineThe fourth essay proposes to enhance the coordination among various diagnostic units (DU) in a diagnostic facility (DF). Taking cue from literature on increasing coordination among various supply chain units, this essay employed scheduling to enhance coordination among various DUs. newlineThe fifth essay addresses the issue of reducing response time by using knowledge of location of ambulance drivers. Kohonen s SOM was used to solve the ambulance driver-scheduling problem (ADS) problem owing to its ability to break the ADS problem into smaller and manageable parts using its unique visual approach. newlineThe final essay proposes the use of mobile healthcare centers (MHC) as a means to increase geographical accessibility of healthcare service in the rural areas. The objective of this eassy is to provide the optimal route for MHC. This eassy presents a preliminary model for routing of MHCs. newlineKeywords: healthcare operations, healthcare management, operation theatre, diagnostic unit, diagnostic facility, ambulance service