Operating schedule: Take into account unexpected events in case of a disaster

In case of a disaster thousands of people may be affected. The needs for medical and surgical treatments overwhelm hospitals' capabilities. A disaster is characterized by different disruptions which perturb largely the execution of the established plans. In hospital and more precisely in operating theatres, the decision-makers have to manage these disruptions in real time. In this setting, we propose a reactive approach in order to optimize the operating rooms scheduling taking into account unexpected events. In this chapter we focus on the insertion of unexpected new victim in the pre-established operating schedule and the overflow of surgical processing time. The purpose is to treat all disruptions and so to save the maximum of human lives. We propose heuristic approach performed by the Cplex solver. Empirical study shows that a substantial aid is obtained by using the proposed approach in case of disaster. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.