Staggered Medication Schedules and Clinician Dispatching Under Uncertain Patient Demand

摘要

Under common medication schedules, all hospital inpatients receive their scheduled medications at the same time. However, nearly 20% of all inpatients over age 40 have COPD and require inhaled medications that take -20 minutes to administer. As a result, inhaled medications are often administered late. To level clinician workload and reduce tardiness, we use a two-stage stochastic program to select staggered administration schedules for inhaled drugs. Guided by critical ratio priorities, a team of clinicians travels from care unit to care unit treating patients, effectively pooling random demand streams and serendipitously supporting a primary care treatment model for COPD patients.