Scheduling of Elective Surgery in Al-Shifa Hospital Using an Integrated AHP-LP Approach

Al-Shifa Medical Complex is the largest central hospital in Gaza Strip. Al-Shifa Hospital has sixteen surgery rooms, six of them are used for elective surgeries that include general and specialized surgeries. Approximately, 35 elective surgeries are booked per day, while on average, 27 elective surgeries are performed daily. The surgeries scheduling in Al- Shifa Hospital follows the First Come First Served (FCFS) rule, which means a patient who first comes is assigned the first available time slot. A quick analysis of the available data shows that only 8% of elective surgeries are performed as scheduled. This research aims to prioritize the patients surgery schedules based on their health status as represented by given criteria/sub-criteria and not only on FCFS bases. Criteria/sub-criteria were identified and a final list was obtained. Criteria included: disease severity, difficulty in performing daily activities, hospital readmissions, patient having other diseases, and the patient age. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) tool was used to rank each criteria/sub-criteria. AHP findings show that disease severity, difficulty in performing daily activities are the most important criteria followed by hospital readmissions, patient having other diseases, and patient age respectively. A Linear Programing model (LP) is formulated to schedule surgeries for each department with an objective function of maximizing the number of surgeries of each department. As a result of LP analysis, it was observed that some of those patients whose surgeries were performed ahead of schedule based on FCFS have the highest priority. Further, some patients whose surgeries were behind schedule ranked lowest. Also the results show that the department whose patients have the highest priority is neurosurgery.