A GRASP algorithm for the elective surgeries scheduling problem in a Chilean public hospital

The high capital expenditures in surgery units fosters to hospital to look for methods to optimize the use of their resources. This article presents a GRASP algorithm to determine a good schedule for elective surgeries considering the context of a Chilean public hospital, with the objectives of maximize the priority of patients and minimize the use of overtime in the operating room. To evaluate the quality of the solution, the results are compared with a mathematical model in small instances, finding the optimum in half of the instances. For larger instances, the unscheduled patients are a 22.6% and the overtime used is a 72.8%, on average, providing a good approximation to the optimal schedule.