ECCO 2024
Abstract Submission

87. The Integrated Healthcare Timetabling Competition 2024

Invited abstract in session TE-2: Timetabling, stream Timetabling.

Thursday, 16:30 - 18:00
Room: M228

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Pieter Smet
Computer Science, KU Leuven
2. Sara Ceschia
Polytechnic Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Udine
3. Roberto Maria Rosati
WU Vienna University of Economics and Business
4. Andrea Schaerf
Polytechnic Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Udine
5. Greet Vanden Berghe
Computer Science, KU Leuven
6. Eugenia Zanazzo
University of Udine

Abstract

Hospitals are notoriously complex systems that encompass a variety of decision and optimization problems. On their own, these problems are often already challenging from a combinatorial point of view. This complexity is compounded by the fact that, in practice, these problems cannot be addressed separately. Instead, realistic optimization problems in hospitals require different interdependent, constrained decisions to be taken at the same time, while optimizing complex objective functions. In this talk, we introduce the Integrated Healthcare Timetabling Competition 2024 which will begin in September 2024. Our goal is to stimulate research on the specifics of integrated scheduling problems in healthcare through a competition format that has proven successful in the past for other problem domains. The competition problem integrates three critical problems encountered in hospitals: surgical case planning, patient admission scheduling and nurse-to-room assignment. We describe each of these problems in detail, along with their interdependencies. Additionally, we discuss some practical aspects of the competition such as its rules and the provided support for participants.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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