A Particle Swarm Optimization approach for physician scheduling in a hospital emergency department

A proper planning of physicians´ work schedule in an emergency room is an important and complicated task for hospital administrators. In this paper, a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)-based intelligent work scheduling system is proposed to help solve the physicians´ work scheduling problem in a hospital emergency department. In this proposed system, a PSO meta-heuristic method is used to search for the most appropriate shift assignment for physicians working in an emergency room. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified by implementing it in a hospital in Northeast Taiwan. The results from the implementation confirm that the proposed system is suitable for solving the physicians´ work scheduling problem in emergency departments. In addition, we also conclude that PSO is an efficient approach for intelligent physicians´ work scheduling when time-consuming what-if analysis is needed.