Optimal Planning and Scheduling in Health Care

拟议的研究的总体目标是推进（ADP）计算方法和理论，并开发新的和可实施的能力规划方法，以满足体弱老年人和精神健康和成瘾问题的人的需求。ADP研究将主要针对运筹学界，但它也旨在影响BC癌症机构的患者调度实践。容量规划研究将推进排队方法，为OR社区确定新的研究领域，并有望影响政策和患者护理。 ADP研究流的具体目标包括获得封闭形式的最佳近似值函数的特征;通过约束采样，列生成，平滑LP近似和基于仿真的方法获得的ADP的解决方案的质量比较;探索基础函数选择的影响，获得新的边界和建立基于瞬态系统的仿真方法的收敛性。 长期护理规划研究的具体目标包括确定为体弱老年人提供所需的全方位协调服务所需的能力，包括及时提供家庭护理、辅助生活、痴呆症护理和不同级别的养老院护理。方法包括模拟优化和非平稳排队网络近似。 另一项研究将侧重于确定满足有心理健康和成瘾问题的封闭人群的需求所需的资源。 它将开发排队网络模型，以获得服务水平，社会成本和比较各种拟议的系统配置。 最初的研究将集中在抽象的模型，但随后将被应用到温哥华的市中心东区，以影响政策和实践。

The overarching objectives of the proposed research are to advance (ADP) computational methods and theory, and to develop new and implementable methods for capacity planning to meet the needs of frail seniors and persons with mental health and addiction issues. The ADP research will be targeted primarily at the operations research community, but it is also intended to impact patient scheduling practice at the BC Cancer Agency. The capacity planning research will advance queuing methodology, identify new research areas for the OR community and hopefully impact policy and patient care. Specific objectives of the ADP stream of research include obtaining closed form characterizations of the optimal approximate value function; comparison of the quality of solutions to the ADP obtained through constraint sampling, column generation, smoothed LP approximation and simulation based methods; exploring the impact of basis function choice, obtaining new bounds and establishing convergence of simulation based methods in transient systems. Specific objectives of the research on long term care planning include determining the capacity needed to provide the full range of coordinated services needed by frail seniors including home care, assisted living, dementia care and different levels of nursing home care in a timely manner. Methods used include simulation optimization and non-stationary queuing network approximations. Another stream of research will focus on determining the resources required to meet the needs of a closed population of persons with mental health and addiction issues. It will develop queuing network models to obtain service levels, costs to society and compare various proposed system configurations. Initially the research will focus on abstract models but will subsequently be applied to the Downtown East Side of Vancouver so as to impact policy and practice.