ABSTRACT
The OM function was first developed in the manufacturing industry. More recently, it has gained momentum also in health care, generating significant interest among health-care professionals, managers, policymakers, and academics. Indeed, OM provides a set of effective models, tools, and technical solutions to improve the quality and efficiency of health-care production processes. Consistency with the organization’s strategic goals. For example, a niche hospital serving only a targeted number of service lines requires a different operations strategy from an acute care community hospital treating multiple service lines. Hospitals need to carefully balance the trade-off between productivity and flexibility in order to cope with the demand fluctuations induced by the pandemic. In this respect, a new interesting concept is the “sleeping hospital”, which is intended to provide spare capacity in order to meet the peaks of demand. During the pandemic, bed capacity has emerged as the most important bottleneck.
