Key result
A linear integer model for redistributing inguinal hernia surgeries across a 6-hospital network in northern Italy considerably reduced scheduling costs compared to the current scenario.
Why the study?
Healthcare systems face pressure to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and in a northern Italian hospital network, complex, urgent, and less complex planned surgeries were overly concentrated in two facilities.
Observational
Yes
A linear integer model for redistributing inguinal hernia surgeries across a hospital network can considerably reduce costs compared to the current scheduling scenario.
May support cost-efficient scheduling models in hospital networks; leaves open prospective validation and clinical impact.
The best public sector performance has long been a topic at the core of political, social and economic debate. Public management policies and the growing adoption of corporate governance principles support the transition towards models capable of guaranteeing greater control of results in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and outcome. Healthcare systems are an example of public service. Due to their high management costs, healthcare systems are often under pressure, especially when there is a need to widen access, to improve their efficiency and their care quality and to reduce inequalities. Operations Management (OM) approaches actively support this path. This article describes a retrospective analysis, in which a surgical rescheduling plan of a hospital in northern Italy (consisting of 6 structures distributed throughout wide provincial area serving over 530,000 inhabitants) has been produced, with particular reference to inguinal hernia surgery as health service subject to optimization. The current situation ("as is" scenario) is characterized by a strong concentration of complex and urgent surgical interventions in two hospital facilities of the hospital network, which are further burdened by less complex planned interventions. A linear integer model has been developed, to determine a possible optimized scenario for the redistribution of surgical interventions, trying to leave complex and urgent cases in the two reference structures, but relieving them of the other cases through a better distribution in the other structures of the network. The costs were the driver used for the scheduling, which resulted to be considerably reduced in the new proposed configuration.
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Marinello et al. (2021) conducted an observational in Inguinal hernia surgery. Surgical rescheduling plan using a linear integer model vs. Current situation ("as is" scenario) was evaluated on Costs and distribution of surgical interventions. A linear integer model for redistributing inguinal hernia surgeries across a 6-hospital network in northern Italy considerably reduced scheduling costs compared to the current scenario.
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