About this ebook
A central theme of the book is increasing healthcare efficiency so that both the cost of care is reduced and more patients have access to care. This can be accomplished through reduction of idle time, lessening the time needed to provide services and matching resources to the needs where they can have the greatest possible impact on health. Within their chapters, authors address:
(1) Use of scheduling to improve healthcare efficiency.
(2) Objectives, constraints and mathematical formulations.
(3) Key methods and techniques for creating schedules.
(4) Recent developments that improve the available problem solving methods.
(5) Actual applications, demonstrating how the methods can be used.
(6) Future directions in which the field of research is heading.
Collectively, the chapters provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of models and methods for scheduling the delivery of patient care for all parts of the healthcare system.
Chapter topics include setting appointments for ambulatory care and outpatient procedures, surgical scheduling, nurse scheduling, bed management and allocation, medical supply logistics and routing and scheduling for home healthcare.
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About the author
Randolph Hall is a Professor in the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Vice Provost for Research Advancement, at the University of Southern California. He has previously edited books on Transportation Science and Patient Flow, as well as written the text Queueing Methods for Services and Manufacturing. He has worked with numerous hospitals on redesign of care delivery under the sponsorship of the California Healthcare Foundation, LA Care and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Dr. Hall holds a Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering, and a B.S. in industrial engineering and operations research, from the University of California at Berkeley.
