With the recent changes in the American healthcare system, it is becoming increasingly
challenging for hospitals to produce a positive bottom line. The operating room presents itself with a
strong potential for helping hospitals bring in revenue. However, in order to be profitable, operating
rooms must schedule cases in such a way that optimizes utilization and pleases all stakeholders.
Stakeholders include physicians, patients, staff, and hospital administrators. Clearly with so many
stakeholders whom have a variety of preferences, this scheduling process can be very challenging. While
there has been previous research on this topic, there are still conflicting views on which scheduling
method is optimal. This study aims to explore several methods of scheduling cases in the operating room,
and determine which method is most beneficial to a hospital. This research utilizes MATLAB to run a
computer simulation, which models an operating room and the arrival of surgical cases. Performance
measures are then used to compare the simulated schedules.
