A Decision Support System for Strategic Planning in Public Hospitals

In this paper we propose a decision support system developed to prioritize the optimization programs of the processesinvolved in the surgical patient flow in a typical Italian hospital context. The DSS is based on Analytic and Network Process methodologies, which are useful in addressing complex problems whose solution requires choosing among alternatives, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative criteria, also contrasting with one another. In developing our DSS we have considered four processes of the surgical patient flow and the resources involved in them: indeed, the impact on efficiency and the feasibility represent the fundamental issues in the prioritization of the process optimization programs. The DSS, therefore, prioritizes the resources, in terms of their contribution to processes optimization, so as to reach a higher level of efficiency without improving resource level in the system.