Coordinating Health Services: An Operations Management Perspective

Rising costs and increasing patient expectations have heightened the need for better coordination of health services. In this chapter we discuss the role that operations research methods such as system dynamics and discrete-event simulation can play in pursuit of such coordination. Most healthcare services are operated independently from others, although patient treatment often requires visiting several services. Also, most operations management methods have focused on improvement or design of individual services. We will highlight some of the research that considers coordination among multiple services, and present two case studies that address coordination at the healthcare system and hospital levels. We also discuss some new trends in healthcare services delivery that have significant implications for operations researchers.