1847. Efficient algorithms for online scheduling of patients in an ophthalmology clinic
Invited abstract in session WA-11: Resource and treatment planning, stream OR in Healthcare (ORAHS).
Wednesday, 8:30-10:00Room: Clarendon SR 1.03
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | VAHID Akbari
|
| Business School, University of Nottingham | |
| 2. | Sanja Petrovic
|
| Division of Operations Management and Information Systems, Nottingham University Business School |
Abstract
Effective patient scheduling in healthcare facilities is a complex task, particularly in environments where patients require multiple-stage medical tests before consulting with their assigned physicians. This study introduces an approach for online patient scheduling by integrating lexicographic multi-objective optimization with heuristic and stochastic techniques. We first develop an offline scheduling model, that maximizes the number of scheduled patients and subsequently minimizes their waiting times. This model is then adapted for online optimization to handle sequential patient arrivals. Additionally, we propose an online stochastic optimization algorithm, incorporating a novel scenario-generation method that anticipates future patient requests based on historical data. To further enhance computational efficiency, we introduce a stochastic heuristic algorithm, which provides high-quality solutions in a fraction of the time required by exact optimization methods. Extensive computational experiments using real-world data from an ophthalmologic clinic demonstrate that the proposed online stochastic scheduling approach reduces patient waiting times while maintaining high resource utilization. Moreover, our findings offer actionable insights for healthcare administrators, particularly in optimizing resource allocation to improve system resilience against increasing patient demand. The developed stochastic heuristic is efficient and can be readily implemented in the clinic.
Keywords
- Scheduling
- Health Care
- Stochastic Optimization
Status: accepted
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