An Integrated Strategic and Tactical Master Surgery Scheduling Approach With Stochastic Resource Demand

This study discusses a master surgery scheduling approach that maximizes hospital revenues while considering the impact on the downstream resources—intensive care units and general patient wards. Demand for these resources is modeled by a stochastic patient path model. I apply an integer programming model to provide the optimal allocation of how many (strategic planning problem) and what (tactical planning problem) operating room (OR) blocks to assign to each medical specialty. I demonstrate further applications of the model, such as the analysis of the value of flexible resources and the simulation of specific resource expansions. The approach is tested with real‐life data from a German university hospital and achieves significant revenue increases.