Emergency Operating Room or Not

Hospital operating theaters often face the problem of unscheduled emergency arrivals that should be treated as soon as possible. In practice different policies are used to allocate these emergency patients to the operating rooms. These policies are (1) keeping operating rooms empty and available for emergency arrivals; (2) treating emergency patients in elective operating rooms, postponing elective patients; and (3) a mix of these two policies. The use of a specific policy affects performance (e.g., utilization, waiting times, overtime). Currently, these effects are not clear, and there is no agreement on what works ‘best’ for a specific hospital.