A Comprehensive Review of Patient Scheduling Techniques with Uncertainty

The advancement of patient scheduling techniques plays a crucial role in cost optimization and enhancing the flow of patients. Efficient patient scheduling ensures the timely allocation of resources and treatment, leading to improved resource utilization and minimized patient waiting times. The dynamic and unpredictable nature of the healthcare system introduces uncertainty, making it essential to address this factor when implementing scheduling processes for real-world healthcare problems. In recent years, there have been many new and improved ways to implement advance methods for patient scheduling in hospitals to make sure resources are used with optimum utilization. Various techniques are isolated because they solve each problem independently. Combining two or more techniques can be beneficial to utilize their advantages collectively. This chapter provides an overview of the latest techniques in patient scheduling, specifically emphasizing on admission scheduling, nurse scheduling, and operating room scheduling along with recovery room or ICU scheduling, while considering both scenarios with and without uncertainty. The purpose of this chapter is to assist researchers by highlighting developments from previous literature and understanding new trends for future directions.