Operation research is the scientific and mathematical investigation and analysis of issues impacting complex systems. There has been an increase in the difficulty of providing good health care to citizens globally, especially in developing countries where few resources and the population is expanding quickly. Consequently, operations research methodologies have been created for various healthcare applications, including emergency department staffing, long-term care planning, and home healthcare planning operating room planning (Silal, 2021). Healthcare research may benefit hospitals in many ways, including helping them better manage their patients and offering better treatment while still being cost-effective.
By incorporating operations research services, specialists may assist in obtaining more full datasets, considering all available alternatives, predicting all potential outcomes, and calculating risk. Operations research may use cases to evaluate which methodologies are the most suited for solving the issue under consideration. Modern operational research methodologies include linear programming, simulation modeling, revenue cycle management, and risk and financial simulation models. Each of these approaches and models uses strategies that combine the objective with being reached, facts relevant to the particular aim, and identifying possibilities to achieve the stated goal, all to arrive at the best decision possible to create a successful conclusion.
One of these strategies would be very useful in minimizing the wait time in an emergency department. It has been shown that by using operations research approaches, hospital operations may be made more effective and efficient in several different ways. In today’s world, the majority of appointments and errands will involve some level of waiting time. In the healthcare industry, wait time refers to the time before obtaining service or, in a healthcare facility, the time before receiving care is offered. Having long wait times in hospitals may result in the hospital not operating smoothly and patients feeling dissatisfied with their treatment at the institution. The amount of time a patient has to wait may affect their health. According to research, long wait times for health care are caused by a lack of capacity concerning demand, a failure to manage either capacity or demand effectively, and a considerable variation in demand for healthcare services over time (Kunwar & Srivastava 2019). Time and motion studies can identify and manage wait times, which are powerful techniques.
Understanding the reasons for emergency department wait times and developing models to support staffing changes is critical when looking at ways to reduce wait times. The use of quick assessment zones, enhanced triage processes, and tracking systems/whiteboards has reduced wait times and improved service quality in U.S. emergency rooms (Bagherian et al., 2020). In addition to giving the necessary information for identifying the reasons for the prolonged wait times, time and motion studies have also offered choices for optimizing front-end operations via implementing a team-wide care strategy.
In conclusion, operational research is currently being utilized as a vital tool to tap into previously untapped information, particularly in resource-poor nations. Administrators are using it as a searchlight to find what is still not in place in the current operations of hospitals. Scientists in healthcare settings should get more familiar with the subtleties of operation research to utilize them more often to improve the results of health programs and make them more efficient and effective. Even though operational researchers have addressed several issues in healthcare services, there is still considerable room for development and study in this field.
References
Bagherian, H., Jahanbakhsh, M., & Tavakoli, N. (2020). A review on the use of operational research techniques in the medical records department. Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare, 29(1), 42–49.
Kunwar, R., & Srivastava, K. (2019). Operational research in health-care settings. Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 44(4), 295.
Silal, S. P. (2021). Operational research: A multidisciplinary approach for the management of infectious disease in a global context. European Journal of Operational Research, 291(3), 929–934.
Tomaskova, H., & Weber, G.-W. (2020). Approaches combining methods of operational research with business process model and notation: A systematic review. PeerJ Computer Science, 6, e301.