Determining a safety stock level for the waiting list of the KNO department at the UMC Utrecht

Capacity planners experience a lack of insight into the connection between their waiting list and their operating room utilization, leading to suboptimal planning. This research aims to calculate the necessary safety stock for the department to prevent surgery scheduling issues due to stockouts at the KNO department of the UMC Utrecht. to model waiting list dynamics and forecast the required safety stock to maintain OR utilization, two methods are evaluated for usability and effectiveness: a Markov model and discrete event simulation. The findings suggest that the Markov model is the most effective approach, providing robust safety stock levels to improve tactical planning decisions and OR scheduling efficiency.