Ontology-based resilient and sustainable resource allocation and scheduling in healthcare systems: a review

The healthcare system in ageing societies such as Canada is currently facing a heavy burden due to the outbreak of COVID-19, leading to a shortage of labour and supplies. This calls for decision-makers to develop policies that can result in sustainable and resilient healthcare. To make such policies, decision makers need to take a system's view of healthcare and consider the goals of social equity and resilience, along with the efficiency of a healthcare system's operations. This review covers three aspects: (1) information modelling of a healthcare system, focusing on an ontology-based approach to information modelling, (2) concepts of system sustainability and resiliency, along with their measurements and applications in healthcare; and (3) computational approaches for resource allocation and scheduling. The review is also expected to identify the knowledge gap in each aspect and suggest future work to close the gap. At the end of this review, there is a discussion on the buzzwords of today in the field of information and knowledge systems, digital twins and big data, and their potential to add value to developing a resilient and sustainable healthcare system, which is the focus of this review.