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Multi-objective scheduling and a resource allocation problem in hospitals

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Abstract

This study addresses the issue of scheduling medical treatments for resident patients in a hospital. Schedules are made daily according to the restrictions on medical equipment and physicians who are being assigned at the same time. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective binary integer programming (BIP) model. Three types of metaheuristics are proposed and implemented to deal with the discrete search space, numerous variables, constraints and multiple objectives: a variable neighborhood search (VNS)-based method, scatter search (SS)-based methods and a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). This paper also provides the results of computational experiments and compares their ability to find efficient solutions to the multi-objective scheduling problem.

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Acknowledgements

José Rui Figueira acknowledges the RENOIR research grant from FCT (PTDC/ GES/73853/2006) and COST Action Research GrantIC0602 on ’Algorithmic Decision Theory’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Trg J.F. Kennedya 6, Zagreb, Croatia

    Silvija Vlah Jerić

  2. CEG-IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Rui Figueira

  3. LORIA Laboratory, Nancy, France

    José Rui Figueira

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  1. Silvija Vlah Jerić
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  2. José Rui Figueira
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Correspondence to Silvija Vlah Jerić.

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Vlah Jerić, S., Figueira, J.R. Multi-objective scheduling and a resource allocation problem in hospitals. J Sched 15, 513–535 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10951-012-0278-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10951-012-0278-9

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