ORAHS2025
Abstract Submission

59. Fair planning of out-of-hours service for pharmacies

Invited abstract in session TC-3: Optimisation, stream Sessions.

Tuesday, 13:30-15:00
Room: NTNU, Realfagbygget R9

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Christina Büsing
Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Kombinatorische Optimierung, RWTH Aachen University
2. Timo Gersing
RWTH Aachen University

Abstract

Pharmacies ensure a continuous supply of pharmaceuticals at any day and night time. An out-of-hours plan assigns 24-hour shifts to a subset of pharmacies on each day such that an appropriate supply is guaranteed while the burden on pharmacists is minimized.

We present a model for the planning developed in collaboration with the Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine. Using aggregation and matheuristics, we compute almost optimal plans for the North Rhine area in short time. The computed plans assign fewer shifts in total compared to the real plan, but they exhibit an unfair concentration of shifts. We propose a strategy for integrating fairness into the planning based on a lexicographic fairness criterion. Using theoretical insights, we compute out-of-hours plans that are almost maximally fair in short time.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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