Developing a Digital Serious Game for Healthcare Logistics: Appointment Scheduling of Elective Surgical Patients in the Operating Room

Healthcare practitioners face a gap of knowledge about operations management topics, leading to inefficiencies in the operations of hospitals. The specific topic addressed is the appointment scheduling of elective patients at a tactical level in the operating room. To fill that gap in knowledge, a serious game is developed in R and R Shiny. This simulation-based serious game is then deployed and made openly accessible through the web. The research further reflects upon the development process and gives recommendations as well as ideas for extensions.