Online Auction-Based Scheduling of Health Care Services for Outpatients

加拿大迅速老龄化的人口对有限的医疗保健服务提出了越来越高的需求，特别是在该国更偏远的地区。优化调度是迎接这一挑战的唯一途径。在这项研究中，每项服务的可用时隙数量都是有限的。这些时段被发布在网站上，并向所有门诊患者发送一封群发电子邮件。这封电子邮件指示这些个人通过使用该网站来指明他们的服务要求。作为投标者的门诊患者将他们的请求表达为捆绑的服务时段。每个捆绑包由几个时隙组成。每个门诊患者都有一个服务的组合优先级值，以指示相对于所有患者的紧急程度。事实上，优先价值与投标人愿意在拍卖中支付的价格相似。为了争取时段，门诊患者必须考虑与他们的需求相关的特殊限制，例如，捆绑的长度、时段的数量和偏好。

Canada's rapidly aging population is placing ever increasing demands on limited health care services, especially in more remote regions of the country. Optimized scheduling is the only way to meet this challenge. In this research, each service has a limited number of available time slots. These time slots are posted on a website and a group email is sent to all outpatients. The email directs these individuals to indicate their service requirements by using the website. Outpatients as bidders express their requests as bundles of service time slots. Each bundle consists of several time slots. Each outpatient has a composed priority value for a service to indicate the level of urgency relative to all patients. In fact, the priority value is similar to the price a bidder is willing to pay in an auction. To bid for time slots, outpatients must consider special constraints relative to their needs, e.g., length of the bundles, number of slots, and preferences.