Surgery scheduling in the perioperative planning: A preliminary study of a surgical readiness in a general hospital in South Korea

The operating room as part of the surgery department in the hospital spends significant operation cost of the whole organization, and to maximizing its occupancy rate is needed to optimize the operation cost. Thus, efficient and effective scheduling system is needed. The authors suggest that a flexible scheduling framework and communication between stakeholders become two influenced aspects for a better surgery scheduling in the perioperative planning. The framework considers the patients' evaluation process during the perioperative period, as of the communication may affect the surgical teamwork performance and the patient safety. It is believed that an effective design of operating room scheduling system can be developed to support the decision making process, thus implicate to the better continuity planning during the perioperative period and increasing the stakeholders' satisfaction.