Making Room for Patients

We've seen that the availability of hospital beds is important
during a pandemic, and it's important during normal times as well.
Whether it's for emergency medical help or for a scheduled
procedure (for example, chemotherapy), access to hospital space,
staff, and equipment can be a matter of life and death. Mathematics
helps medical center staff manage their resources more efficiently
so that they are available when needed. An optimization technique
called integer programming is used along with tools from
statistics, probability, and machine learning to create better
schedules for operating rooms, treatment centers, and the people
who staff them. David Scheinker talks about the mathematics
involved in hospital operations.