IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/operea/v25y2025i1d10.1007_s12351-024-00884-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A comprehensive review on operating room scheduling and optimization

Author

Listed:
  • Md Al Amin

    (Hamad Bin Khalifa University
    Khulna University of Engineering & Technology)

  • Roberto Baldacci

    (Hamad Bin Khalifa University)

  • Vahid Kayvanfar

    (Hamad Bin Khalifa University)

Abstract

The growing number of publications on Operating Room Scheduling (ORS) in recent years reflects the rapid advancements in the field. This review aims to comprehensively analyze the historical developments and evolving trends in operating room scheduling by systematically examining the literature from 2000 to 2023. A multi-database search, including Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, ProQuest and IEEE Xplore was employed to ensure the inclusion of key studies. This paper presents a review of the factors, descriptive fields, and key issues in operating room scheduling. It also focuses on optimization techniques and solution approaches for both deterministic and uncertain conditions. Special attention is given to real-world constraints, such as resource limitations, staff availability and patient variability which significantly impact scheduling. The review identifies that ORS research covers a broad spectrum of problems and solutions, with no singular research trend dominating the field. This indicates that researchers are tackling diverse challenges across various contexts. The final section outlines the significant pitfalls and proposes future research directions, including the integration of emerging technologies and sustainability considerations. This review is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and academicians in healthcare operations and hospital management, offering insights into current practices and future opportunities for innovation in ORS.

Suggested Citation

  • Md Al Amin & Roberto Baldacci & Vahid Kayvanfar, 2025. "A comprehensive review on operating room scheduling and optimization," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 1-30, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:operea:v:25:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s12351-024-00884-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s12351-024-00884-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12351-024-00884-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12351-024-00884-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Fügener & Sebastian Schiffels & Rainer Kolisch, 2017. "Overutilization and underutilization of operating rooms - insights from behavioral health care operations management," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 115-128, March.
    2. Alessandro Agnetis & Alberto Coppi & Matteo Corsini & Gabriella Dellino & Carlo Meloni & Marco Pranzo, 2014. "A decomposition approach for the combined master surgical schedule and surgical case assignment problems," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 49-59, March.
    3. Angela Testi & Elena Tànfani, 2009. "Tactical and operational decisions for operating room planning: Efficiency and welfare implications," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 363-373, December.
    4. Jose M. Molina-Pariente & Erwin W. Hans & Jose M. Framinan, 2018. "A stochastic approach for solving the operating room scheduling problem," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 224-251, June.
    5. Adan, Ivo & Bekkers, Jos & Dellaert, Nico & Jeunet, Jully & Vissers, Jan, 2011. "Improving operational effectiveness of tactical master plans for emergency and elective patients under stochastic demand and capacitated resources," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 213(1), pages 290-308, August.
    6. Teng Huang & David Bergman & Ram Gopal, 2019. "Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics for Location Selection of Add‐on Retail Products," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(7), pages 1858-1877, July.
    7. Sakine Batun & Brian T. Denton & Todd R. Huschka & Andrew J. Schaefer, 2011. "Operating Room Pooling and Parallel Surgery Processing Under Uncertainty," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 220-237, May.
    8. Marques, Inês & Captivo, M. Eugénia, 2017. "Different stakeholders’ perspectives for a surgical case assignment problem: Deterministic and robust approaches," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(1), pages 260-278.
    9. Sean Harris & David Claudio, 2022. "Current Trends in Operating Room Scheduling 2015 to 2020: a Literature Review," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-42, March.
    10. Wang, Yu & Zhang, Yu & Tang, Jiafu, 2019. "A distributionally robust optimization approach for surgery block allocation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(2), pages 740-753.
    11. Mathieu Vandenberghe & Stijn De Vuyst & El-Houssaine Aghezzaf & Herwig Bruneel, 2021. "Stochastic surgery selection and sequencing under dynamic emergency break-ins," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(6), pages 1309-1329, June.
    12. Ivo Adan & Jos Bekkers & Nico Dellaert & Jan Vissers & Xiaoting Yu, 2009. "Patient mix optimisation and stochastic resource requirements: A case study in cardiothoracic surgery planning," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 129-141, June.
    13. Bernardetta Addis & Giuliana Carello & Andrea Grosso & Elena Tànfani, 2016. "Operating room scheduling and rescheduling: a rolling horizon approach," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 206-232, June.
    14. Michael Fairley & David Scheinker & Margaret L. Brandeau, 2019. "Improving the efficiency of the operating room environment with an optimization and machine learning model," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 756-767, December.
    15. Bovim, Thomas Reiten & Christiansen, Marielle & Gullhav, Anders N. & Range, Troels Martin & Hellemo, Lars, 2020. "Stochastic master surgery scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 285(2), pages 695-711.
    16. David Bergman & Teng Huang & Philip Brooks & Andrea Lodi & Arvind U. Raghunathan, 2022. "JANOS: An Integrated Predictive and Prescriptive Modeling Framework," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 807-816, March.
    17. Verena Schmid & Karl F. Doerner, 2014. "Examination and Operating Room Scheduling Including Optimization of Intrahospital Routing," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(1), pages 59-77, February.
    18. J. Essen & Johann Hurink & Woutske Hartholt & Bernd Akker, 2012. "Decision support system for the operating room rescheduling problem," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 355-372, December.
    19. Taozeng Zhu & Jingui Xie & Melvyn Sim, 2022. "Joint Estimation and Robustness Optimization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 1659-1677, March.
    20. Shuwan Zhu & Wenjuan Fan & Shanlin Yang & Jun Pei & Panos M. Pardalos, 2019. "Operating room planning and surgical case scheduling: a review of literature," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 757-805, April.
    21. Ahmadi-Javid, Amir & Jalali, Zahra & Klassen, Kenneth J, 2017. "Outpatient appointment systems in healthcare: A review of optimization studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(1), pages 3-34.
    22. Harish Guda & Milind Dawande & Ganesh Janakiraman & Kyung Sung Jung, 2016. "Optimal Policy for a Stochastic Scheduling Problem with Applications to Surgical Scheduling," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 25(7), pages 1194-1202, July.
    23. Lepenioti, Katerina & Bousdekis, Alexandros & Apostolou, Dimitris & Mentzas, Gregoris, 2020. "Prescriptive analytics: Literature review and research challenges," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 57-70.
    24. Sebastian Rachuba & Brigitte Werners, 2017. "A fuzzy multi-criteria approach for robust operating room schedules," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 251(1), pages 325-350, April.
    25. Seyed Hossein Hashemi Doulabi & Louis-Martin Rousseau & Gilles Pesant, 2016. "A Constraint-Programming-Based Branch-and-Price-and-Cut Approach for Operating Room Planning and Scheduling," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 432-448, August.
    26. Cardoen, Brecht & Demeulemeester, Erik & Beliën, Jeroen, 2010. "Operating room planning and scheduling: A literature review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(3), pages 921-932, March.
    27. Michael Samudra & Carla Van Riet & Erik Demeulemeester & Brecht Cardoen & Nancy Vansteenkiste & Frank E. Rademakers, 2016. "Scheduling operating rooms: achievements, challenges and pitfalls," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 493-525, October.
    28. Francesca Guerriero & Rosita Guido, 2011. "Operational research in the management of the operating theatre: a survey," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 89-114, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sean Harris & David Claudio, 2022. "Current Trends in Operating Room Scheduling 2015 to 2020: a Literature Review," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-42, March.
    2. Shuwan Zhu & Wenjuan Fan & Shanlin Yang & Jun Pei & Panos M. Pardalos, 2019. "Operating room planning and surgical case scheduling: a review of literature," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 757-805, April.
    3. Michael Samudra & Carla Van Riet & Erik Demeulemeester & Brecht Cardoen & Nancy Vansteenkiste & Frank E. Rademakers, 2016. "Scheduling operating rooms: achievements, challenges and pitfalls," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 493-525, October.
    4. Akbarzadeh, Babak & Moslehi, Ghasem & Reisi-Nafchi, Mohammad & Maenhout, Broos, 2019. "The re-planning and scheduling of surgical cases in the operating room department after block release time with resource rescheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(2), pages 596-614.
    5. Aisha Tayyab & Saif Ullah & Mohammed Fazle Baki, 2023. "An Outer Approximation Method for Scheduling Elective Surgeries with Sequence Dependent Setup Times to Multiple Operating Rooms," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-15, May.
    6. Zhang, Jian & Dridi, Mahjoub & El Moudni, Abdellah, 2020. "Column-generation-based heuristic approaches to stochastic surgery scheduling with downstream capacity constraints," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    7. Koppka, Lisa & Wiesche, Lara & Schacht, Matthias & Werners, Brigitte, 2018. "Optimal distribution of operating hours over operating rooms using probabilities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 1156-1171.
    8. Omolbanin Mashkani & Andreas T. Ernst & Dhananjay Thiruvady & Hanyu Gu, 2023. "Minimizing patients total clinical condition deterioration in operating theatre departments," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 328(1), pages 821-857, September.
    9. Gökalp, E. & Gülpınar, N. & Doan, X.V., 2023. "Dynamic surgery management under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(2), pages 832-844.
    10. Babak Akbarzadeh & Ghasem Moslehi & Mohammad Reisi-Nafchi & Broos Maenhout, 2020. "A diving heuristic for planning and scheduling surgical cases in the operating room department with nurse re-rostering," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 265-288, April.
    11. Akbarzadeh, Babak & Maenhout, Broos, 2024. "A study on policy decisions to embed flexibility for reactive recovery in the planning and scheduling process in operating rooms," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Marques, Inês & Captivo, M. Eugénia, 2017. "Different stakeholders’ perspectives for a surgical case assignment problem: Deterministic and robust approaches," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(1), pages 260-278.
    13. Roshanaei, Vahid & Luong, Curtiss & Aleman, Dionne M. & Urbach, David R., 2020. "Reformulation, linearization, and decomposition techniques for balanced distributed operating room scheduling," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    14. Mariana Oliveira & Filippo Visintin & Daniel Santos & Inês Marques, 2022. "Flexible master surgery scheduling: combining optimization and simulation in a rolling horizon approach," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 824-858, December.
    15. Zhang, Yu & Wang, Yu & Tang, Jiafu & Lim, Andrew, 2020. "Mitigating overtime risk in tactical surgical scheduling," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    16. Roshanaei, Vahid & Booth, Kyle E.C. & Aleman, Dionne M. & Urbach, David R. & Beck, J. Christopher, 2020. "Branch-and-check methods for multi-level operating room planning and scheduling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    17. Duma, Davide & Aringhieri, Roberto, 2019. "The management of non-elective patients: shared vs. dedicated policies," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 199-212.
    18. Azar, Macarena & Carrasco, Rodrigo A. & Mondschein, Susana, 2022. "Dealing with uncertain surgery times in operating room scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 299(1), pages 377-394.
    19. Jian-Jun Wang & Zongli Dai & Wenxuan Zhang & Jim Junmin Shi, 2023. "Operating room scheduling for non-operating room anesthesia with emergency uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 321(1), pages 565-588, February.
    20. Aringhieri, Roberto & Duma, Davide & Landa, Paolo & Mancini, Simona, 2022. "Combining workload balance and patient priority maximisation in operating room planning through hierarchical multi-objective optimisation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(2), pages 627-643.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:operea:v:25:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s12351-024-00884-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.