Summary and Conclusion

Abstract

The efforts of operations research to solve problems concerning the delivery of health care have met with mixed success. For some problems, such as the location of facilities and the optimal management of blood and other inventories, bed complements, nurse staffing, appointment systems, and ambulances, results usable in actual operations have been obtained. However, other applications in these areas and many of the applications in others are constrained by unrealistic assumptions. The major reasons for this are the inherent difficulties that operations, research has in solving problems of large systems and in quantifying variables and constraints (especially those concerning human factors), and the lack of involvement of health professionals in all levels of the definition, solution, and implementation of many studies Still, these studies present important foundations for further work. The field is large and relatively new; there is much yet to do.