Operations Research on Health Care in Chile: An Experiment

Abstract

The problem of applying operations research techniques in a real setting is the subject of this paper. A group of faculty members at the University of Chile consented to study operations research in theory and practice by attending lectures at the University, and at the same time collecting statistical information in the field. These activities resulted in the formulation of a flow model of the pediatric services system in the North Area of Santiago. Integration of the flow of patients, resources, and records led to the development of a simultaneous equation model reflecting an operating health services system. This in turn spurred a set of recommendations for translating these results into policy measures. Linear programming and Markovian flow analysis were also applied to the data primarily for heuristic purposes. The experiment proved that it is possible to train health care professionals quickly and effectively for complex analytical tasks, and that such training is applicable to real-world problems.