Waiting lists for surgery

Abstract

Health waiting lists in general and surgical waiting list in particular are a problem for the majority of the European countries with a National Health System. In this chapter, the problem of the waiting lists for surgery from a general perspective in the scope of the health management in the European Union (EU) is analyzed. Also, applying mathematical programming techniques, we intend to design the real performance of surgical services at a local general hospital offering the decision maker a suitable methodology that allows us to analyze whether or not it is possible to improve the running of the services, taking into account all the real constraints, e.g. space, staff availability, waiting time upper limit or financial support.