Evaluating the Impact of the Level of Robustness in Operating Room Scheduling Problems

Managing uncertainty in surgery times presents a critical challenge in operating room (OR) scheduling, as it can have a significant impact on patient care and hospital efficiency. <b>Objectives:</b> By incorporating robustness into the decision-making process, we can provide a more reliable and adaptive solution compared to traditional deterministic approaches. <b>Materials and methods:</b> In this paper, we consider a cardinality-constrained robust optimization model for OR scheduling, addressing uncertain surgery durations. By accounting for patient waiting times, urgency levels and delay penalties in the objective function, our model aims to optimise patient-centred outcomes while ensuring operational resilience. However, to achieve an appropriate balance between resilience and robustness cost, the robustness level must be carefully tuned. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the model's performance, assessing its sensitivity to robustness levels and its ability to handle different uncertainty scenarios. <b>Results:</b> Our results show significant improvements in patient outcomes, including reduced waiting times, fewer missed surgeries and improved prioritisation of urgent cases. Key contributions of this research include an evaluation of the representativeness and performance of the patient-centred objective function, a comprehensive analysis of the impact of robustness parameters on OR scheduling performance, and insights into the impact of different robustness levels. <b>Conclusions:</b> This research offers healthcare providers a pathway to increase operational efficiency, improve patient satisfaction, and mitigate the negative effects of uncertainty in OR scheduling.