Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Facilitating the transition from manual to automated nurse rostering

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Health Systems

Abstract

After several decades of academic research in the field of automated nurse rostering, few results find their way to practice. Often, the configuration of a software system for automated rostering presents a task considered too time-consuming and difficult. The present article introduces a methodology for automating part of the costly and unintuitive configuration process by automatically determining the relative importance of soft constraints based on historical data. Naturally, this automated approach can only be reliable in the absence of transient effects and drastic changes. The approach is evaluated on retrospective and prospective case studies, and is validated by health-care practitioners partaking in an experimental study. The results show that, given relevant historical data, the presented approach simplifies the transition from manual to automated rostering, thus bringing academic research on nurse rostering closer to its practical application.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdennadher S and Schlenker H (1999) INTERDIP – an interactive constraint based nurse scheduler. In Proceedings of the First International Conference and Exhibition on The Practical Application of Constraint Technologies and Logic Programming, London, UK.

  • Aickelin U and Dowsland KA (2004) An indirect genetic algorithm for a nurse-scheduling problem. Computers & Operations Research 31 (5), 761–778.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ásgeirsson EI (2014) Bridging the gap between self schedules and feasible schedules in staff scheduling. Annals of Operations Research 218 (1), 51–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ballestero E (2007) Compromise programming: a utility-based linear-quadratic composite metric from the trade-off between achievement and balanced (non-corner) solutions. European Journal of Operational Research 182 (3), 1369–1382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berrada I, Ferland JA and Michelon P (1996) A multi-objective approach to nurse scheduling with both hard and soft constraints. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 30 (3), 183–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke EK, De Causmaecker P, Vanden Berghe G and Van Landeghem H (nov 2004) The state of the art of nurse rostering. Journal of Scheduling 7 (6), 441–499.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke EK, Curtois T, Post G, Qu R and Veltman B (2008) A hybrid heuristic ordering and variable neighbourhood search for the nurse rostering problem. European Journal of Operational Research 188 (2), 330–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke EK, Li J and Qu R (2012) Pareto-based optimization for multi-objective nurse scheduling. Annals of Operations Research 196 (1), 91–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chankong V and Haimes YY (2008) Multiobjective Decision Making: Theory and Methodology. Dover Publications, Mineola, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charon I and Hudry O (2001) The noising methods: a generalization of some metaheuristics. European Journal of Operational Research 135 (1), 86–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coello CAC, Lamont GB and Van Veldhuisen DA (2007) Evolutionary Algorithms for Solving Multi-Objective Problems, Genetic and evolutionary computation, Springer Science & Business Media, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drake RG (2014a) The nurse rostering problem: from operational research to organizational reality? Journal of Advanced Nursing 70 (4), 800–810.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drake RG (2014b) The ‘robust’ roster: exploring the nurse rostering process. Journal of Advanced Nursing 70 (9), 2095–2106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eiben AE and Van Hemert JI (1999) SAW-ing EAs: adapting the fitness function for solving constrained problems. In New Ideas in Optimization (Corne D, Dorigo M, Glover F, Dasgupta D, Moscato P, Poli R and Price KV, Eds), pp 389–402, McGraw-Hill Ltd., Maidenhead, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ernst A, Jiang H, Krishnamoorthy M and Sier D (2004) Staff scheduling and rostering: a review of applications, methods and models. European Journal of Operational Research 153 (1), 3–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eveborn P and Rönnqvist M (2004) Scheduler–a system for staff planning. Annals of Operations Research 128 (1–4), 21–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hulshof PJH, Kortbeek N, Boucherie RJ, Hans EW and Bakker PJM (2012) Taxonomic classification of planning decisions in health care: a structured review of the state of the art in OR/MS. Health Systems 1 (2), 129–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelemci Ö and Uyar S (2007) Application of a genetic algorithm to a real world nurse rostering problem instance. In Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pp 474–477, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.

  • Kellogg DL and Walczak S (2007) Nurse scheduling: from academia to implementation or not? Interfaces 37 (4), 355–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kudyba S and Perry T (2015) A data mining approach for estimating patient demand. Health Systems 4 (1), 5–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marmion M-E, Dhaenens C, Jourdan L, Liefooghe A and Verel S (2011) NILS: a neutrality-based iterated local search and its application to flowshop scheduling. In Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Merz P and Hao J-K, Eds), Vol 6622, pp 191–202, Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mirrazavi SK and Beringer H (2007) A web-based workforce management system for Sainsburys supermarkets Ltd. Annals of Operations Research 155 (1), 437–457.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parr D and Thompson JM (2007) Solving the multi-objective nurse scheduling problem with a weighted cost function. Annals of Operations Research 155 (1), 279–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petrovic S and Vanden Berghe G (2012) A comparison of two approaches to nurse rostering problems. Annals of Operations Research 194 (1), 365–384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silvestro R and Silvestro C (2000) An evaluation of nurse rostering practices in the national health service. Journal of Advanced Nursing 32 (3), 525–535.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smet P, Bilgin B, De Causmaecker P and Vanden Berghe G (2014) Modelling and evaluation issues in nurse rostering. Annals of Operations Research 218 (1), 303–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smet P, De Causmaecker P, Bilgin B and Vanden Berghe G (2013) Nurse rostering: a complex example of personnel scheduling with perspectives. In Automated Scheduling and Planning, Studies in Computational Intelligence (Uyar AS, Ozcan E and Urquhart N, Eds), pp 129–153 vol 505, Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Tai BC and Machin D (2013) Regression Methods for Medical Research. Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tourangeau AE, McGillis Hall L, Doran DM and Petch T (2006) Measurement of nurse job satisfaction using the McCloskey/Mueller satisfaction scale. Nursing Research 55 (2), 128–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Tobania and the hospital staff for their cooperation. This research was carried out within the IWT 110257 project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. KU Leuven, Departement of Computer Science, CODeS & iMinds – ITEC, Gent, Belgium

    Mihail Mihaylov, Pieter Smet & Greet Vanden Berghe

  2. KU Leuven, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences & iMinds-ITEC, Kortrijk, Belgium

    Wim Van Den Noortgate

Authors
  1. Mihail Mihaylov
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pieter Smet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wim Van Den Noortgate
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Greet Vanden Berghe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pieter Smet.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mihaylov, M., Smet, P., Van Den Noortgate, W. et al. Facilitating the transition from manual to automated nurse rostering. Health Syst 5, 120–131 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/hs.2015.12

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/hs.2015.12

Keywords

Search

Navigation