Blocking in Healthcare Operations: A New Heuristic and an Application

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bretthauer, Kurt M.; Heese, H. Sebastian; Pun, Hubert; Coe, Edwin
• 署名单位: Indiana University System; Indiana University Bloomington; IU Kelley School of Business; Western University (University of Western Ontario); University Western Ontario Hospital; California Pacific Medical Center
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2011.01230.x
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 375-391
• 关键词: queuing networks; blocking; Healthcare; capacity allocation

摘要

We consider the problem of optimal capacity allocation in a hospital setting, where patients pass through a set of units, for example intensive care and acute care (AC), or AC and post-acute care. If the second stage is full, a patient whose service at the first stage is complete is blocked and cannot leave the first stage. We develop a new heuristic for tandem systems to efficiently evaluate the effects of such blocking on system performance and we demonstrate that this heuristic performs well when compared with exact solutions and other approaches presented in the literature. In addition, we show how our tandem heuristic can be used as a building block to model more complex multi-stage hospital systems with arbitrary patient routing, and we derive insights and actionable capacity strategies for a real hospital system where such blocking occurs between units.