IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/annopr/v315y2022i2d10.1007_s10479-021-03982-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A stochastic model for the patient-bed assignment problem with random arrivals and departures

Author

Listed:
  • Mojtaba Heydar

    (University of Tasmania
    Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers
    Curtin University)

  • Małgorzata M. O’Reilly

    (University of Tasmania
    Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers)

  • Erin Trainer

    (University of Tasmania)

  • Mark Fackrell

    (Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers
    The University of Melbourne)

  • Peter G. Taylor

    (Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers
    The University of Melbourne)

  • Ali Tirdad

    (Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers
    The University of Melbourne)

Abstract

We consider the patient-to-bed assignment problem that arises in hospitals. Both emergency patients who require hospital admission and elective patients who have had surgery need to be found a bed in the most appropriate ward. The patient-to-bed assignment problem arises when a bed request is made, but a bed in the most appropriate ward is unavailable. In this case, the next-best decision out of a many alternatives has to be made, according to some suitable decision making algorithm. We construct a Markov chain to model this problem in which we consider the effect on the length of stay of a patient whose treatment and recovery consists of several stages, and can be affected by stays in or transfers to less suitable wards. We formulate a dynamic program recursion to optimise an objective function and calculate the optimal decision variables, and discuss simulation techniques that are useful when the size of the problem is too large. We illustrate the theory with some numerical examples.

Suggested Citation

  • Mojtaba Heydar & Małgorzata M. O’Reilly & Erin Trainer & Mark Fackrell & Peter G. Taylor & Ali Tirdad, 2022. "A stochastic model for the patient-bed assignment problem with random arrivals and departures," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(2), pages 813-845, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:315:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10479-021-03982-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-021-03982-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-021-03982-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10479-021-03982-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Warren B. Powell, 2016. "Perspectives of approximate dynamic programming," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 241(1), pages 319-356, June.
    2. Mark Fackrell, 2009. "Modelling healthcare systems with phase-type distributions," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 11-26, March.
    3. Warren B. Powell, 2009. "What you should know about approximate dynamic programming," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 239-249, April.
    4. Peter J. H. Hulshof & Martijn R. K. Mes & Richard J. Boucherie & Erwin W. Hans, 2016. "Patient admission planning using Approximate Dynamic Programming," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 30-61, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gökalp, E. & Gülpınar, N. & Doan, X.V., 2023. "Dynamic surgery management under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(2), pages 832-844.
    2. Heydar, Mojtaba & Mardaneh, Elham & Loxton, Ryan, 2022. "Approximate dynamic programming for an energy-efficient parallel machine scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 363-380.
    3. Rempel, M. & Cai, J., 2021. "A review of approximate dynamic programming applications within military operations research," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 8(C).
    4. Voelkel, Michael A. & Sachs, Anna-Lena & Thonemann, Ulrich W., 2020. "An aggregation-based approximate dynamic programming approach for the periodic review model with random yield," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 281(2), pages 286-298.
    5. Victor F. Araman & René A. Caldentey, 2022. "Diffusion Approximations for a Class of Sequential Experimentation Problems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 5958-5979, August.
    6. Liu, Xinbao & Yang, Tianji & Pei, Jun & Liao, Haitao & Pohl, Edward A., 2019. "Replacement and inventory control for a multi-customer product service system with decreasing replacement costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(2), pages 561-574.
    7. Daniel Egan & Qilun Zhu & Robert Prucka, 2023. "A Review of Reinforcement Learning-Based Powertrain Controllers: Effects of Agent Selection for Mixed-Continuity Control and Reward Formulation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-31, April.
    8. Alexandre Carbonneau & Fr'ed'eric Godin, 2021. "Deep Equal Risk Pricing of Financial Derivatives with Multiple Hedging Instruments," Papers 2102.12694, arXiv.org.
    9. Silva, Thiago A.O. & de Souza, Mauricio C., 2020. "Surgical scheduling under uncertainty by approximate dynamic programming," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    10. Harper, P.R. & Knight, V.A. & Marshall, A.H., 2012. "Discrete Conditional Phase-type models utilising classification trees: Application to modelling health service capacities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 219(3), pages 522-530.
    11. Fanwen Meng & Kiok Teow & Chee Ooi & Bee Heng & Seow Tay, 2015. "Analysis of patient waiting time governed by a generic maximum waiting time policy with general phase-type approximations," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 267-278, September.
    12. Jianzhe Luo & Vidyadhar G. Kulkarni & Serhan Ziya, 2012. "Appointment Scheduling Under Patient No-Shows and Service Interruptions," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 670-684, October.
    13. Alexandra M. Newman & Martin Weiss, 2013. "A Survey of Linear and Mixed-Integer Optimization Tutorials," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 26-38, September.
    14. McClean, Sally & Gillespie, Jennifer & Garg, Lalit & Barton, Maria & Scotney, Bryan & Kullerton, Ken, 2014. "Using phase-type models to cost stroke patient care across health, social and community services," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 236(1), pages 190-199.
    15. Bruce Jones & Sally McClean & David Stanford, 2019. "Modelling mortality and discharge of hospitalized stroke patients using a phase-type recovery model," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 570-588, December.
    16. Ana Batista & Jorge Vera & David Pozo, 2020. "Multi-objective admission planning problem: a two-stage stochastic approach," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 51-65, March.
    17. Nikola Mardešić & Tomislav Erdelić & Tonči Carić & Marko Đurasević, 2023. "Review of Stochastic Dynamic Vehicle Routing in the Evolving Urban Logistics Environment," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-44, December.
    18. van Dijk, N.M. & van der Sluis, E. & Bulder, L.N. & Cui, Y., 2024. "Flexible serial capacity allocation with intensive care application," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    19. Waßmuth, Katrin & Köhler, Charlotte & Agatz, Niels & Fleischmann, Moritz, 2023. "Demand management for attended home delivery—A literature review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(3), pages 801-815.
    20. Lee, Younsoo & Lee, Kyungsik, 2022. "New integer optimization models and an approximate dynamic programming algorithm for the lot-sizing and scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setups," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 230-243.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:315:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10479-021-03982-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.