A rolling horizon-based matheuristic for the Integrated Multi-Appointment Blueprint Scheduling Problem

The coordination of resources is critical for hospitals to create effective schedules that reduce patient waiting time to access appointments. In this study, we propose an integrated multiappointment blueprint scheduling problem to manage the challenges of resource allocation in the Orthopedic Department at St.Olav’s hospital in Norway. The model provides integration between outpatient clinic and operating room schedules to control the patient waiting list and minimize the total number of patients waiting in queues at the end of the planning horizon. To improve the efficiency of the model, we propose model extensions adding activity and surgeon patterns for modeling resource allocation to patients. Due to the large size and complexity of the problem, we propose a matheuristic to solve the problem. The algorithm involves three phases; initially, the heuristic begins by solving the model using a rolling-horizon heuristic. If the solution is found to be infeasible, a feasibility phase starts, and finally the algorithm iteratively fixes and re-optimizes the allocation of resources to patient types to locally improve the solution. The matheuristic shows better solutions in a reasonable time compared to solving the optimization model with a commercial solver. • An integrated blueprint scheduling model is developed to coordinate outpatient clinic and operating room resources. • A multi-appointment scheduling problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model. • A three-phase matheuristic algorithm based on rolling horizon heuristic is proposed to improve the solution quality.