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A comparison of two approaches to nurse rostering problems

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  • Sanja Petrovic
  • Greet Berghe

Abstract

Despite decades of research into automated methods for nurse rostering and some academic successes, one may notice that there is no consistency in the knowledge that has been built up over the years and that many healthcare institutions still resort to manual practices. One of the possible reasons for this gap between the nurse rostering theory and practice is that often the academic community focuses on the development of new techniques rather than developing systems for healthcare institutions. In addition, methods suitable for one problem are usually not easily transferable to other problems. In real-world healthcare environments, a personnel manager cannot afford to model a problem and construct a roster using available approaches in order to quantitatively determine which one suits best. There is a lack of criteria for the comparison of approaches to provide a clear picture about their advantages and disadvantages and therefore their suitability to a problem in hand. This paper introduces seven criteria: expressive power, flexibility, algorithmic power, learning capabilities, maintenance, rescheduling capabilities, and parameter tuning, that may offer guidance to researchers and developers of systems for nurse rostering. Two approaches to nurse rostering, which are of very different nature, are evaluated and compared against the introduced criteria. One approach is based on meta-heuristics, while the other employs case-based reasoning. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

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  • Sanja Petrovic & Greet Berghe, 2012. "A comparison of two approaches to nurse rostering problems," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 365-384, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:194:y:2012:i:1:p:365-384:10.1007/s10479-010-0808-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-010-0808-9
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    Cited by:

    1. Böðvarsdóttir, Elín Björk & Smet, Pieter & Vanden Berghe, Greet & Stidsen, Thomas J.R., 2021. "Achieving compromise solutions in nurse rostering by using automatically estimated acceptance thresholds," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(3), pages 980-995.
    2. Leung, Polly P.L. & Wu, C.H. & Kwong, C.K. & Ip, W.H. & Ching, W.K., 2021. "Digitalisation for optimising nursing staff demand modelling and scheduling in nursing homes," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    3. Sanja Petrovic, 2019. "“You have to get wet to learn how to swim” applied to bridging the gap between research into personnel scheduling and its implementation in practice," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 275(1), pages 161-179, April.
    4. Ademir Constantino & Dario Landa-Silva & Everton Melo & Candido Mendonça & Douglas Rizzato & Wesley Romão, 2014. "A heuristic algorithm based on multi-assignment procedures for nurse scheduling," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 218(1), pages 165-183, July.
    5. Paveena Chaovalitwongse & Krongsin Somprasonk & Naragain Phumchusri & Joseph Heim & Zelda B. Zabinsky & W. Art Chaovalitwongse, 2017. "A decision support model for staff allocation of mobile medical service," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 249(1), pages 433-448, February.
    6. Kjartan Kastet Klyve & Ilankaikone Senthooran & Mark Wallace, 2023. "Nurse rostering with fatigue modelling," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 21-45, March.
    7. Gülcin Ermis & Can Akkan, 2019. "Search algorithms for improving the pareto front in a timetabling problem with a solution network-based robustness measure," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 275(1), pages 101-121, April.
    8. Toni I. Wickert & Alberto F. Kummer Neto & Márcio M. Boniatti & Luciana S. Buriol, 2021. "An integer programming approach for the physician rostering problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 302(2), pages 363-390, July.
    9. Christopher N. Gross & Andreas Fügener & Jens O. Brunner, 2018. "Online rescheduling of physicians in hospitals," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 296-328, June.

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