Devising logical rules in healthcare operations management

There are several OR techniques used within healthcare operations management. They range from basic soft OR methods to a more formal analysis of an operational problem. However, there is a need to provide a more structured and precise framework for healthcare professionals to understand the operational dynamics of the system right from the beginning. In most cases, they are able to capture the details about various aspects through discussion, modelling, brainstorming and find ways to record them in the operations management process. However, the specific information about the logical operational rules are not easily identifiable at the initial stages, mainly because there are not many techniques that can capture these details. In this talk, we present results of a short study conducted at a user group event attended by 25 healthcare professionals that reveals interesting points about their understanding and structuring of these logical rules. A framework to visually structure these rules at the problem defining phase will be presented. This is based on finite state machine diagrams adapted from computer science. The approach will be presented with a short case study in a healthcare context.