Better planning of operations

Modern hospitals face serious planning challenges – for example in organizing work-shifts and operations. Today, most planning of this sort is done manually in a time-consuming process, which means that the plans are often sub-optimal.

Now, SINTEF is collaborating with the Universities of Nottingham and Oslo, as well as software companies Gatsoft and DIPS, in an attempt to solve the problem. The HOSPITAL (Health care Optimisation Software for Planning, rosTering, And scheduling) project aims to develop optimization methods that will offer improved decision-making support for planning in the health services.

Operation planners from four hospitals have also participated in the five-year project, which is being partly financed by the Research Council of Norway. An admissions planning prototype has already appeared, and before the end of the project in 2012 a range of other prototypes for other planning purposes will also be developed.