الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Operating rooms (OR) are one of the most costly resources in any hospital, so they must be utilized effectively. Hospitals construct a master surgical schedule (MSS) to specify the distribution of surgery specialties over ORs along a defined time horizon. The present study aims to formulate an integer linear programming model to address the problem of creating MSS while considering the downstream resources and surgical nurses. The developed model’s objective is to minimize the number of expected blockings between the intraoperative and postoperative stages as well as minimize the variability in daily postoperative bed occupancy. The model incorporates factors pertaining to ORs, surgery groups, surgical nurses, and postoperative beds, as well as the patient’s expected length of stay (LOS). After testing the model, the model is implemented in a private hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. When compared to the hospital’s current schedule, the results demonstrated a decrease in the number of blockings between stages and a more balanced daily postoperative bed occupancy. Sensitivity analysis is performed to give hospital management an overview on the influence of modifying the number of patients per block, patients’ LOS, number of postoperative beds, and required OR blocks on performance of produced MSS.