A new scheduling tool could help hospitals reduce surgical wait times

A Concordia-led research team has developed a planning tool that could help hospitals book their operating rooms more efficiently, shorten wait times and better cope with last‑minute emergencies. The researchers developed their model using artificial intelligence tools to plan which operating rooms to open on each day, when each surgery should start and which cases may need to be delayed, all in a single, integrated framework. Their model uses far fewer variables than a widely used previous approach, making it faster and more practical for real hospital conditions, especially when dealing with dozens or even hundreds of operations in a week.