Schedulers should take time averages and a feasible turn over time to the allotted time period for each physician. Most surgical schedulers are not cultivated to the mechanisms of an operating suite sequence for procedures. The function of the surgical schedule requires precision, staffing resources, and all supplies (including equipment) to be able to provide patient care appropriately: We define the surgical scheduling problem as the selection of procedures to be performed, the allocation of resource time to those procedures, and the sequencing of the procedures within the allocated time. Resource time includes the surgeon's' time, including block time (an interval of time over which an individual surgeon or a surgical practice has scheduling control) and the OR time. Brick-and-mortar decisions (such as how many ORs to construct), as well as staff scheduling for support personnel (such as anesthesiologists and nurses), constrain and interact with surgical scheduling, but we view them as being driven by surgical scheduling rather than driving it.(May) .
With schedulers, not knowing what each procedures needs consist of, continue to crowd more cases in to fill block times, and not allowing for secondary problems and room turnovers. Some surgeons require more time than others to complete a procedure, and the fact, some cases need a different type of anesthesia: monitored anesthesia care (MAC) versus a general anesthetic. This type of anesthesia requires additional equipment, medications and the placement of an airway breathing tube. Scheduling personnel need to increase time for each procedure to avoid these turn around problematic situations. Alvarez states "Schedules based on the Surgeon's' own estimated operating times is a popular technique, however the surgeon tends to underestimate the time needed for the procedure and to fit cases into the time available". (296) Surgical nurses need to be the driving force behind scheduling.