Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Volume 48, Issue 1 , Pages 61-70, January 2010

A hybrid tabu search algorithm for automatically assigning patients to beds

  • Peter Demeester

      Affiliations

    • KaHo Sint-Lieven, Information Technology, Gebroeders Desmetstraat 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author at: KaHo Sint-Lieven, Vakgroep Informatietechnologie, Gebr. Desmetstraat 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium. Tel.: +32 9 265 86 10; fax: +32 9 225 62 69.
    • ,
  • Wouter Souffriau

      Affiliations

    • KaHo Sint-Lieven, Information Technology, Gebroeders Desmetstraat 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium
    • ,
  • Patrick De Causmaecker

      Affiliations

    • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Campus Kortrijk, Computer Science and Information Technology, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, 8500 Kortrijk, Belgium
    • ,
  • Greet Vanden Berghe

      Affiliations

    • KaHo Sint-Lieven, Information Technology, Gebroeders Desmetstraat 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium

Received 13 August 2008; received in revised form 21 August 2009; accepted 12 September 2009.

Abstract 

Objective

We describe a patient admission scheduling algorithm that supports the operational decisions in a hospital. It involves efficiently assigning patients to beds in the appropriate departments, taking into account the medical needs of the patients as well as their preferences, while keeping the number of patients in the different departments balanced.

Methods

Due to the combinatorial complexity of the admission scheduling problem, there is a need for an algorithm that intelligently assists the admission scheduler in taking decisions fast. To this end a hybridized tabu search algorithm is developed to tackle the admission scheduling problem. For testing, we use a randomly generated data set. The performance of the algorithm is compared with an integer programming approach.

Results and conclusion

The metaheuristic allows flexible modelling and presents feasible solutions even when disrupted by the user at an early stage in the calculation. The integer programming approach is not able to find a solution in 1h of calculation time.

Keywords: Decision support, Admission scheduling, Metaheuristic

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PII: S0933-3657(09)00134-1

doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2009.09.001

Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Volume 48, Issue 1 , Pages 61-70, January 2010

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