A tabu search heuristic approach for allocating operating room capacity

In this paper, two methodologies for allocating hospital operating room (OR) capacity to medical specialties were developed. The first methodology integrates a linear programming (LP) model with a tabu search (TS) heuristic algorithm and the second methodology integrates a greedy search algorithm (GA) with a TS heuristic algorithm. The models determine a monthly operating room allocating template that minimises inpatients' length of stay. A number of patient type priorities (e.g., emergency over inpatient) and clinical constraints (e.g., maximum number of hours allocated to each specialty) are included in the models. The proposed methodologies are tested using real data, analysed using various scenarios and compared in terms of solution quality and computational time.