Application of operations research within the UK healthcare context

Operations Research (OR) techniques enable decision makers and stakeholders to analyse and evaluate strategies for effective operations management of sophisticated systems. Healthcare systems are an example of such complex systems, and therefore it comes as no surprise that an increasing number of healthcare-focussed OR studies have been reported in literature over the years. Although several studies have profiled literature in healthcare modelling and simulation (Katsaliaki and Mustafee, 2011; Brailsford et al., 2009; Jun et al., 1999), there is currently no study that has methodologically reviewed the application of OR in healthcare. The objective of this paper, therefore, is to synthesise extant literature in healthcare OR by classifying papers based on OR technique, application category, healthcare speciality, among others. The scope of this review paper is limited to OR studies undertaken in the UK. One interesting finding of this study is that the application of OR in the UK healthcare system does not cover a wide range of OR techniques and methods; from among 70 papers that are included in this review, about 80% discuss simulation techniques. Our review also reveals that approx. 37% of the studies have employed multiple OR techniques for realising the stated objectives and that simulation is one of the methods included in these studies