Nurse Scheduling Problem by Considering Fuzzy Modeling Approach to Treat Uncertainty on Nurses’ Preferences for Working Shifts and Weekends off

Nowadays, the nurse scheduling problem (NSP) has attracted a great amount of attentions. In this problem,the nurses are scheduled to be assigned to the shifts by considering the required nurses for each day during the planning horizon. In the current study, a bi-objective mathematical model is formulated in order to maximize the preferences of the nurses to work on the shifts in addition to be off on the weekends. In real-world problems, higher quality schedules are provided considering the uncertainty. In this point of view, we investigate the uncertainty on the preferences of the nurses for the working shifts and the weekends off. In fact, a compensatory fuzzy approach based on the Werners’ fuzzy and operator is proposed to investigate the effects of the uncertainty on the considered research problem. Then, several sample problems are generated to support the efficiency of the developed fuzzy model. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is implemented to determine the effects of the changes of the parameters on the obtained results.

Keywords:

Health systems , Healthcare management , Nurse scheduling problem , Mathematical programming model , Fuzzy modeling approach