Preferences for specific work schedules: foundation for an expert-system scheduling program

Area of Science:

• Nursing informatics
• Operations research

Background:

• Developing an expert system for nurse scheduling requires understanding the stability of nurse preferences.
• Frequent changes in preferences would hinder the feasibility of automated scheduling systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the reliability and stability of nurses' schedule preferences over time.
• To determine if nurses' preferences are consistent enough for an expert scheduling system.

Main Methods:

• The study analyzed the consistency of nurse schedule preferences.
• Cluster analysis was employed to group nurses with similar preferences.

Main Results:

• Most nurses demonstrated consistent schedule preferences over a 3- to 6-month period.
• Cluster analysis successfully grouped nurses based on their tour preferences, indicating identifiable patterns.

Conclusions:

• Nurse schedule preferences are sufficiently stable for developing expert scheduling systems.
• The findings support the feasibility of implementing automated systems that consider individual nurse preferences.