Modeling of Multi-Level Planning of Shifting Bottleneck Resources Integrated with Downstream Wards in a Hospital

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

After careful reading the paper, I have some suggestions.

1. Abstract:

(a)Keywords are not matching: heuristic and recovery ward

(b)The key word is the most significant in the paper, and should use concise type to present, but in the paper, it appears integrated operating room planning and scheduling, and does not match the content.

(c)The contents should not appear abbreviation, such as OR and ICU. Please appear in the main body on article.

2. The overall paper is too lengthy (29 pages), could it be shortened to about 20 pages. Suggested that the preface can be shortened and the Natation of page 7 should be shift into appendix(according to the format of general papers)

3. The mathematical model of the paper is to use the linear program method (page 26, line 661), but in the abstract did not mentioned. Please recheck, and add in abstract.

4. According to the description in the paper, the effect is quite excellent. My personal suggestion is that after using the thesis method, could add the quantitative effect on the economy, such as the percentage of cost saved?

5. Page 29, line 679: Further extension of the work includes prediction of patient arrivals and length of stay …..: According to personal opinion, the linear program seems cannot use in prediction.

6. In conclusion, please add the limitation of the research.

7. REF[18], REF[30], REF[35] and REF[41] are too far away, and did not see the topic of linear program. Please recheck.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Author/s have a scope to improve the significant of contents and scientific soundness of applied methodology.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

1.        The theory of constraint is applied in this manuscript, and a mixed integer linear programming model is developed for integrated planning and scheduling of the operating room, considering the constraints of the downstream wards.

2.        Also, different models for planning and scheduling are made considering the shifting of bottleneck resources of hospitals.

3.        This manuscript applied many equations and models to test problems of small, medium, and large sizes of each scenario when the operating room, ICU, and ward become bottleneck resources.

After reviewing this manuscript, some comments are suggested below:

1.     More references within 5 years are suggested to be provided in this study.

2.     Please describe the patient population of research clearly from the three parts: operation room (OR), intensive care units (ICU), and wards.

3.     Please describe why this manuscript used the CPLEX solver on different sizes of test problems? What is the strength and weakness of the CPLEX solver?

After providing the above minor revision, this manuscript is recommended to be published in the journal of Applied Science.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

REVIEW

Title of the paper: Modelling of Multilevel Planning of Shifting Bottleneck Resources Integrated with Downstream Wards in a Hospital

Manuscript Number: applsci-2198352

General conclusion: Minor Revision.

 

Comments

After carefully reading the proposed paper, this paper contains an interesting proposal; my overall impression is that the manuscript presents some results that could be useful in practice. I have a good opinion about this work and recommend its acceptance after addressing the following aspects:

My comments are:

1.      What is the important of using CPLEX solver?

2.     In general, it is usual that section of the introduction presents (in the following order) the topic, motivations of the work, bibliographical review, objectives, the novelty of the manuscript, and description of its sections, with no formulas, which can be moved to a section of background on the topic. This organization must be considered in the revised manuscript.

3.     More information around Figures 1and 2 should be reported.

4.     In Table 3, Poisson distribution, can the authors use binomial distribution instead of Poisson?

5.     The Figures in the manuscript are not clear, if it is possible to put the figures in the eps extension.

6.     The authors must provide more details about the computational framework used in the manuscript. For example, software and packages used, features of the computer employed, runtimes, and other computational aspects must be added.

7.     The conclusions need to be improved. Also, the authors must add limitations to the study and more ideas for further research. Then, I suggest titling the final section as "Conclusions, limitations, and future research".

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx