A Dynamic Scheduler for Health Care Resources in the Emergency Department of TBRHSC on exploiting Machine Learning during Diverse Situations of COVID-19 Pandemic.

桑德贝地区健康科学中心(TBRHSC)是安大略省西北部的一家基本医疗机构。TBRHSC目前正在使用一种名为Amion的商业软件来进行工作人员日程安排。然而，由于新冠肺炎疫情造成的人满为患的局面，急诊部一直面临着许多不同寻常的困难。尽管如此，流感季节带来的额外压力仍在继续。由于TBRHSC的许多工作人员因怀疑是无症状的冠状病毒携带者而被隔离，在患者数量激增和医生数量有限的情况下，时间安排变得更加关键。此外，为减少冠状病毒在医院院舍内可能出现的风险，该中心的急症室已主动安排工作人员划分为不同的区域(高污染风险区和低污染风险区)。因此，为了解决所有这些新出现的问题，我们提议开发一个智能和自适应的调度程序，确保将这两个区域的工作人员之间的接触降至最低，并最大限度地提高工作人员的满意度。此外，调度系统将与常规急诊科工作人员合作，按需分配非急诊科医生，以提供进一步支持。在这项研究项目下，共有三名学生将接受培训。研究结果将通过出版物传播。

Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC) is an essential healthcare facility in Northwestern Ontario. TBRHSC is currently utilizing a commercial software called AMiON for staff scheduling purposes. However, due to the overcrowding situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Emergency Department has been facing many unusual difficulties. Nevertheless, the extra added layer of pressure because of flu season continues to persist. Since over a number of staff at TBRHSC have been quarantined under the suspicion of being asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus, scheduling becomes even more critical with a surging number of patients and a limited number of physicians. Furthermore, to limit the possible exposure of coronavirus in the hospital premises, the TBRHSC emergency department has taken the initiative to schedule staff divided into different zones (High contamination risk zone and low contamination risk zone). Therefore, to resolve all these emerging issues, we are proposing to develop a smart and adaptive scheduler that will ensure to minimize the contact between the staff of these two zones and maximize staff satisfaction. Besides, the scheduling system will allocate non-emergency department physicians on-demand in cooperation with the regular emergency department staff for further support. A total of three students will be trained under this research project. The results of the research will be disseminated through publications.