Skip to main content

Support-Based Distributed Optimisation: An Approach to Radiotherapy Scheduling

  • Conference paper
Book cover Electronic Healthcare (eHealth 2010)

Abstract

The public health system is plagued by inefficient use of resources. Frequently, the results are lengthy patient treatment waiting times. While many solutions for patient scheduling in health systems exist, few address the problem of coordination between independent autonomous departments. In this study, we describe the use of a distributed dynamic constraint optimisation algorithm (Support Based Distributed Optimisation) for the generation and optimisation of schedules across autonomous units. We model the problem of scheduling radiotherapy patients across several independent oncology units as a dynamic distributed constraint optimisation problem. Such an approach minimises the sharing of private information such as department operation details as well as patient privacy information while taking into consideration patient preferences as well as resource utilisation to find a pareto-optimal solution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Billiau, G., Chang, C.F., Ghose, A.: Sbdo: A new robust approach to dynamic distributed constraint optimisation. In: PRIMA 2010, pp. 1–8 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Chechetka, A., Sycara, K.: No-commitment branch and bound search for distributed constraint optimization. In: AAMAS 2006, pp. 1427–1429 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Harvey, P.: Solving Very Large Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems. PhD thesis, University of Wollongong (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Huang, G.Q., Lau, J.S.K., Mak, K.L., Liang, L.: Distributed project scheduling with information sharing in supply chains: part 1 – an agent based negotiation model. International Journal of Production Research 1, 4813–4838 (2005)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Liu, N., Abdelrahman, M.A., Ramaswamy, S.: A complete multiagent framework for robust and adaptable dynamic job scheduling. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics – Part C: Applications and Reviews 5, 904–916 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Mertens, K.: An Ant-Based Approach for Solving Dynamic Constraint Optimization Problems. PhD thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (December 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Modi, P.J., Shen, W.-M., Tambe, M., Yokoo, M.: Adopt: asynchronous distributed constraint optimization with quality guarantees. Artificial Intelligence 161, 149–180 (2005)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Paulussen, T.O., Jennings, N.R., Decker, K.S., Heinzl, A.: Distributed patient scheduling in hospitals. In: IJCAI, pp. 1224–1232 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Petcu, A., Faltings, B.: Dpop: A scalable method for multiagent constraint optimization. In: IJCAI 2005, pp. 266–271 (August 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Spectrasoft, http://spectrasoft.com/practice-management-software/ (accessed September 12, 2010)

  11. Toptal, A., Sabuncuoglu, I.: Distributed scheduling: a review of concepts and applications. International Journal of Production Research 1, 1–28 (2009)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Vermeulen, I., Bohte, S., Somefun, K., La Poturé, H.: Multi-agent pareto appointment exchanging in hospital patient scheduling. In: Service Oriented Computing and Applications, vol. 1, pp. 185–196. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

About this paper

Cite this paper

Billiau, G., Chang, C.F., Ghose, A., Miller, A. (2011). Support-Based Distributed Optimisation: An Approach to Radiotherapy Scheduling. In: Szomszor, M., Kostkova, P. (eds) Electronic Healthcare. eHealth 2010. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 69. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23635-8_41

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23635-8_41

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23634-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23635-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics