Modelling and optimisation of healthcare systems: an overview

Healthcare systems are complex service systems having multifarious objectives. Healthcare managers have to minimise the overall cost for delivery of healthcare, but not at the expense of quality of care. With the current scenario of increasing cost of healthcare due to newer technologies and increased demand, it has become a real challenge for any healthcare system to provide quality care within resource and budget constraints. The quality resources need to be utilised in an optimal way with the establishment of appropriate healthcare planning and organisation. This paper presents an overview of the applications of operational research tools for modelling and optimisation of healthcare systems in relation to a number of important issues like facility location and layout, capacity planning, inventory control, resource, staff, and appointment scheduling, etc. The modelling approaches are classified and briefly reviewed so as to provide guidance to researchers and practitioners for their application to specific problems in healthcare systems.