title: Optimization of clinical teaching unit call schedules at the Ottawa hospital through tabu search heuristics.
abstract: The task of scheduling medical staff for evening rounds in the Clinical Teaching Unit of the Ottawa Hospital is a long complicated task due to its complexity. Three main classifications of staff, combined with various rotations, skill sets, clinical teams and vacation periods have combined to create a difficult scheduling problem. As there were no commercial packages available to solve this particular task, a study was made of heuristic scheduling and optimization techniques and a program based on a variation of the tabu search heuristic was written and tested. This system is being used to schedule medical staff at the Ottawa Hospital.
authors.affiliation: Departement of Internal Medicine, School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. white@site.uottawa.ca
authors.forename: Christine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: George M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: White
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D002170:Canada; D006748:Hospital Departments / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007388:Internal Medicine; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000458:organization & administration; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling; D010562:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling Information Systems; D012984:Software; D013663:Teaching