Simulation framework to analyze operating room release mechanisms

The block time (BT) schedule, which allocates Operating Rooms (ORs) to surgical specialties, causes
inflexibility for scheduling outside the BT, which negatively affects new surgeons, new specialties, and
specialties that have fluctuation in the number of surgeries. For this inflexibility, we introduce the concept
of releasing ORs, and present a generic simulation and evaluation framework that can be used by hospitals
to evaluate various release mechanisms. The simulation and evaluation framework is illustrated by a case
study at Vanderbilt Medical Center and University (VUMC) in Nashville. The results show that introducing
a release policy has benefits in decreasing the number of unscheduled patients and decreasing access time,
without affecting the specialties originally assigned to the released rooms.