Efficiency and priority in planning surgical sessions by using the SWALIS model

Operating room (OR) sessions planning is often critical, due to potential clinical consequences of errors, while access to surgery often follows non transparent prioritization. In previous projects we designed the Surgical Waiting List InfoSystem (SWALIS) model to prioritize elective waiting lists. In the present study we present further modeling work, aiming at building instruments to plan OR session. Two new indexes were identified to measure the efficiency of planning both admissions and OR sessions, on the basis of the SWALIS prioritization. The SWALIS original data underwent simulation on a cohort of 1612 patients, including retrospective and cross sectional calculation and trend analysis. The availability of objective information allowed measuring the demand and the provided service. Furthermore, the new intelligible data on the efficiency and appropriateness of the pre-admission management allowed designing tools to plan OR sessions according to the actual and forecasted demand. ©2010 IEEE.