Allocating doctors to shifts in an accident and emergency department

A method is proposed for allocating doctors to weekly shifts in an accident and emergency department of a hospital. Two models, solved by dynamic programming, are used. The first finds the optimal solution to the problem of allocating doctors per hour of the week proportionally to the corresponding patient arrival-rate; and the second uses this solution to smooth out the hourly discrepancies in the number of doctors within a shift. The solution is then assessed by computer simulation.