239. Staffing for Flexibility: Dimensioning and Scheduling Nursing Pools - A Case Study from St. Olav’s Hospital
Invited abstract in session HF-4: Innovation 3, stream Sessions.
Thursday, 15:30-17:00Room: St Olavs, Kunnskapssenteret KA12
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Aina Goday
|
| St. Olavs hospital |
Abstract
Health care staff are becoming a scarce resource in the coming years, stressing the need for efficient use of nursing staff. At St. Olav's Hospital (Norway), we are addressing this challenge by assessing the potential of establishing pools of float nurses. Unlike traditional unit nurses, float nurses can cover multiple units and can be assigned to units that require additional staffing on short notice. By relying on a pool of nurses, the hospital can meet a variable demand with staff working regular hours rather than summoning unit nurses for overtime work or hiring external nurses.
We have developed an optimisation model for dimensioning and scheduling nursing pools in a multi-unit setting. Based on a stochastic demand for additional nursing staff in each unit on each workday and shift, the model determines the optimal pool size, the base shift schedule, and daily assignment of float nurses. The model’s objective is to minimise the costs of covering demand with either employed float nurses or by summoning unit nurses to work overtime.
We apply our approach in two real life case studies at St. Olav’s Hospital. In the first case, we assess the existing pool in the Medical clinic to determine whether its current size aligns with our model recommendations. In the second case, we compare four pooling strategies across five of the hospital’s smallest clinics to investigate the benefits of establishing a common pool as an alternative to individual pools.
Keywords
- Staffing and capacity planning
Status: accepted
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