A tactical multi-week implicit tour scheduling model with applications in healthcare

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Healthcare Management
• Applied Mathematics

Background:

• Healthcare staffing requires solving complex tour scheduling problems with variable staffing needs.
• Traditional explicit models become computationally prohibitive for multi-week horizons and increased flexibility.
• Existing operational scheduling systems need complementary tactical planning tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel tactical multi-week implicit tour scheduling model.
• To address the scalability limitations of explicit tour scheduling methods.
• To aid in quantifying trade-offs between labor costs, understaffing, and scheduling flexibility.

Main Methods:

• Developed a tactical multi-week implicit tour scheduling model.
• Incorporated flexible tour types, including intra-tour start time and shift length variations.
• Included varying degrees of weekend flexibility in the model.
• Tested model performance on medical units with diverse demand patterns.

Main Results:

• The implicit model effectively solves large-scale tour scheduling problems.
• Demonstrated the model's ability to handle complex staffing requirements across multiple weeks.
• Computational experiments confirmed the model's utility in analyzing cost-staffing trade-offs.

Conclusions:

• The implicit tour scheduling model offers a scalable solution for tactical healthcare workforce planning.
• The model facilitates better decision-making regarding labor costs and staffing levels.
• The open-source release aims to promote practitioner adoption and further research in scheduling.