Operations Research in Healthcare: a survey

TLDR

Optimisation in healthcare has been studied for over three decades, and with declining birth rates and rising longevity its importance has grown, expanding from resource allocation to operational issues such as scheduling and treatment planning. This paper surveys the applications of Operations Research in healthcare. It reviews contemporary optimisation contributions, current research activities, and solution techniques across a range of healthcare optimisation problems.

Abstract

Optimisation problems in Healthcare have received considerable attention for more than three decades. More recently, however, with decreasing birth rates in nearly all of the developed countries and increasing average longevity globally, optimisation issues in Healthcare have become noticeably important and attract keen interest from the Operations Research community. Over the years, attention has gradually expanded from resource allocation and strategic planning to include operational issues such as resource scheduling and treatment planning. This paper surveys several applications of Operations Research in the domain of Healthcare. In particular, the paper reviews key contributions addressing contemporary optimisation issues in this area. It highlights current research activities, focusing on a variety of optimisation problems as well as solution techniques used for solving the optimisation problems.