This story from the May 2, 2016 Chicago Tribune discusses Eugene Litvak’s theory that managing the OR is the key to decreasing hospital overcrowding.  The former Soviet mathematician and system engineer believes that managing the predictable nature of elective surgeries can better control the unpredictable nature of emergency medicine.

Some hospitals have reportedly

reaped millions of dollars in added revenues and avoided unnecessary construction costs, while reducing medical errors, overtime pay and ER waiting times.”What Litvak recognized — and that is the true genius of his approach — is that variability of patient flow is in our control,” said Dr. Ellis “Mac” Knight, chief medical officer and senior vice president for the Atlanta-based health care consulting firm The Coker Group. “We can’t control how many people get sick or get in car wrecks and come into the ER, but we can control the number of elective surgeries. He showed that if you can smooth out the number of elective surgeries scheduled throughout the week, you can eliminate the peaks and valleys and dramatically impact the efficiency and safety of hospital operations,” he explained.

Source: Meet the man who says he can reduce the ER overcrowding problem – Chicago Tribune