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Scheduling Medical Residents at Boston University School of Medicine

Author

Listed:
  • Amy Cohn

    (Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109)

  • Sarah Root

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72703)

  • Carisa Kymissis

    (Department of Psychiatry, St. Luke's Hospital, New York, New York 10025)

  • Justin Esses

    (Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02118)

  • Niesha Westmoreland

    (Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York 10467)

Abstract

The chief residents in the psychiatry program at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) must construct a schedule that simultaneously assigns residents to five types of call shifts, spanning three different hospitals, over a 365-day planning horizon. We show how user expertise and heuristic approaches alone fail to find acceptable solutions to this complex combinatorial problem; likewise, mathematical programming techniques alone are inadequate, largely because they lack a clearly definable objective function. However, by combining both approaches, we were able to find high-quality solutions in a very short time. The resulting schedule, which BUSM uses currently, has yielded substantial benefits; the solution quality has improved, and the effort required to develop the solution has been reduced.

Suggested Citation

  • Amy Cohn & Sarah Root & Carisa Kymissis & Justin Esses & Niesha Westmoreland, 2009. "Scheduling Medical Residents at Boston University School of Medicine," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 186-195, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:39:y:2009:i:3:p:186-195
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.1080.0369
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    7. Christopher Garcia, 2019. "Practice Summary: Managing Capacity at the University of Mary Washington’s College of Business," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 49(2), pages 167-171, March.
    8. Erhard, Melanie & Schoenfelder, Jan & Fügener, Andreas & Brunner, Jens O., 2018. "State of the art in physician scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(1), pages 1-18.
    9. Christopher N. Gross & Jens O. Brunner & Manfred Blobner, 2019. "Hospital physicians can’t get no long-term satisfaction – an indicator for fairness in preference fulfillment on duty schedules," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 691-708, December.
    10. Pooyan Kazemian & Yue Dong & Thomas Rohleder & Jonathan Helm & Mark Van Oyen, 2014. "An IP-based healthcare provider shift design approach to minimize patient handoffs," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-14, March.
    11. Young-Chae Hong & Amy Cohn & Stephen Gorga & Edmond O’Brien & William Pozehl & Jennifer Zank, 2019. "Using Optimization Techniques and Multidisciplinary Collaboration to Solve a Challenging Real-World Residency Scheduling Problem," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 49(3), pages 201-212, May.
    12. Seizinger, Markus & Brunner, Jens O., 2023. "Optimized planning of nursing curricula in dual vocational schools focusing on the German health care system," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(3), pages 1223-1241.
    13. Junhong Guo & William Pozehl & Amy Cohn, 2023. "A two-stage partial fixing approach for solving the residency block scheduling problem," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 363-393, June.
    14. Kraul, Sebastian & Fügener, Andreas & Brunner, Jens O. & Blobner, Manfred, 2019. "A robust framework for task-related resident scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(2), pages 656-675.
    15. David Rea & Craig Froehle & Suzanne Masterson & Brian Stettler & Gregory Fermann & Arthur Pancioli, 2021. "Unequal but Fair: Incorporating Distributive Justice in Operational Allocation Models," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(7), pages 2304-2320, July.
    16. Castaño, Fabián & Velasco, Nubia, 2020. "Exact and heuristic approaches for the automated design of medical trainees rotation schedules," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    17. Hannah K. Smalley & Pınar Keskinocak & Atul Vats, 2015. "Physician Scheduling for Continuity: An Application in Pediatric Intensive Care," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 45(2), pages 133-148, April.
    18. Brech, Claus-Henning & Ernst, Andreas & Kolisch, Rainer, 2019. "Scheduling medical residents’ training at university hospitals," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 253-266.
    19. Ruben A. Proano & Akshit Agarwal, 2018. "Scheduling internal medicine resident rotations to ensure fairness and facilitate continuity of care," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 461-474, December.

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