PURPOSE OF COURSE is to teach participants how to apply principles of operations research to solve problems in the operating room and perioperative environment: - Monitoring operational and financial performance of surgical suites and anesthesia groups (“descriptive analytics”), - Forecasting case durations, time remaining in cases, use of staffed OR time (“predictive analytics”), - Applying principles of operations research to make common decisions as well as possible, such as staffing levels, block time planning, case scheduling and assignment, financial manage-ment, and strategic planning (“prescriptive analytics”), - Identifying in-house expertise to aid in problem-solving and determining whether outside consultants are needed, - Evaluating current decision-support systems.