Multi-objective operating room scheduling considering desiderata of the surgical team

Optimizing the daily operating room schedule can be problematic because of the many constraints that need to be taken into account, and solving this issue within a reasonable time span is difficult. The originality of the present study is the consideration of the surgical team's wishes in the establishment of an operating room schedule. To resolve the operating room scheduling problem, we took advantage of the “expressive power” of the constraint programming paradigm to include multiple real-life constraints in our model, such as availability, staff preferences, and affinities among staff members. The aim of this research was to optimize use of the operating room by minimizing the makespan, minimizing overtime hours, and maximizing affinities among members of the surgical team. We developed a “generic” model that includes most of the problems encountered in the literature as well as constraints apparent in our hospital. The results achieved when using this model in a real-life situation are presented at the end of the paper.