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Scheduling healthcare services: An object-orientation approach
Abstract
This dissertation explores the possibility of applying the principles of the object-orientation paradigm in the area of decision making, in general, and for scheduling healthcare services, in particular. The use of object-orientation concepts, such as inheritance, encapsulation, classes, and subclasses provides the basis for the proposed model. A large regional community health center is used as a source of data for modeling the scheduling system. This dissertation consists of two major parts. In the first part, the object-orientation paradigm is explored and an object-orientation decision-making system for scheduling healthcare services is proposed. In the second part, specific optimization techniques are used to solve scheduling problems for two specific sub-classes of the proposed object-orientation scheduling system. These include traditional management science techniques, such as simulation and mathematical programming as well as more recent optimization techniques, such as genetic search algorithms. The radiology center is considered as a representative of that class of scheduling problems, which is characterized by random arrivals of patients, with stochastic processing times and several servers. For this class, simulation is proposed as an optimization technique. Another common class of scheduling problem is the one, which is characterized by sequence dependent setup times with dual criteria. When the number of patients in the system is relatively large, the proposed LP formulation becomes very complex with respect to the number of constraints and decision variables. In such a situation, a genetic search optimization model is proposed and designed. The results of this study are both theoretical and practical. The object-orientation approach helps for a better understanding of complex systems and provides solutions that can increase the flexibility of such systems. For the first time in the literature, this dissertation provides a comprehensive, yet simple and flexible scheduling system in a healthcare center based on the principles of the object-orientation paradigm. The proposed dispatching rules and optimization techniques significantly improve the overall performance of the hospital.
Subject Area
Health care|Artificial intelligence|Management
Recommended Citation
Asllani, Arben Aziz, "Scheduling healthcare services: An object-orientation approach" (1998). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9908461.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9908461