From Operations to Elderly Care Outcomes: A Thematic Review of Industrial Engineering and Decision-Support Approaches
Why optimizing hospital schedules doesn't always improve patient health
Operations researchers have developed powerful tools to make elderly care more efficient—better staff scheduling, smarter medication management, optimized hospital workflows—yet these improvements rarely translate into better health outcomes for actual patients. A review of 30 studies reveals a stubborn gap: operational improvements work on paper, but hospitals struggle to convert them into measurable gains in how seniors actually feel and recover.
As populations age globally, healthcare systems are drowning in complexity. Better logistics alone won't solve the problem—you need systems that connect hospital decisions to what happens when patients go home, coordinate multiple medications safely, and adjust care timing to patients' actual biological rhythms. Without closing this gap, hospitals will keep optimizing the wrong things while seniors fall through the cracks between departments.