Background In many hospitals, operating theatres are not used to their full potential due to the dynamic nature of demand and the complexity of theatre scheduling. Theatre inefficiencies may lead to access block and delays in treating patients requiring critical care. This study aims to employ operating theatre data to provide decision support for improved theatre management.

Method Historical observations are used to predict long-term daily surgery caseload in various levels of granularity, from emergency versus elective surgeries to clinical specialty-level demands. A statistical modelling and a machine learning-based approach are developed to estimate daily surgery demand. The statistical model predicts daily demands based on historical observations through weekly rolling windows and calendar variables. The machine learning approach, based on regression algorithms, learns from a combination of temporal and sequential features. A de-identified data extract of elective and emergency surgeries at a major 783-bed metropolitan hospital over four years was used. The first three years of data were used as historical observations for training the models. The models were then evaluated on the final year of data.

Results Daily counts of overall surgery at a hospital-level could be predicted with approximately 90% accuracy, though smaller subgroups of daily demands by medical specialty are less predictable. Predictions were generated on a daily basis a year in advance with consistent predictive performance across the forecast horizon.

Conclusion Predicting operating theatre demand is a viable component in theatre management, enabling hospitals to provide services as efficiently and effectively as possible to obtain the best health outcomes. Due to its consistent predictive performance over various forecasting ranges, this approach can inform both short-term staffing choices as well as long-term strategic planning.