Multiagent Based Scheduling of Elective Surgery

Scheduling of patients, staff, and resources for elective surgery in an under-resourced and overburdened public health system represents an inherently distributed class of problems. The complexity and dynamics of interacting factors demand a flexible, reactive and timely solution, in order to achieve a high level of utilization. In this paper, we present an Automated Scheduler for Elective Surgery (ASES) wherein we model the problem using the multiagent systems paradigm. ASES is designed to reflect and complement the existing manual methods of elective surgery scheduling, while offering efficient mechanisms for negotiation and optimization. Inter-agent negotiation in ASES is powered by a distributed constraint optimization algorithm. This strategy provides hospital departments with control over their individual schedules while ensuring conflict free optimal scheduling. We evaluate ASES to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach and demonstrate the effect of fluctuation in staffing levels on theatre utilization. We also discuss ongoing development of the system, mapping key challenges in the journey towards deployment.

[1]  Andriy Panchenko,et al.  Dialog-Based Intelligent Operation Theatre Scheduler , 2006 .

[2]  Xiaolan Xie,et al.  A stochastic model for operating room planning with elective and emergency demand for surgery , 2008, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[3]  Robert N. Lass,et al.  Dynamic Distributed Constraint Reasoning , 2008, AAAI.

[4]  Katia P. Sycara,et al.  An Any-space Algorithm for Distributed Constraint Optimization , 2006, AAAI Spring Symposium: Distributed Plan and Schedule Management.

[5]  Stefan Kirn.  Multiagent Engineering, Theory and Applications in Enterprises , 2006, Multiagent Engineering.

[6]  Patrick Prosser,et al.  Intelligent scheduling: Past, present and future , 1994 .

[7]  Andriy Panchenko,et al.  An Approach for Automated Surgery Scheduling , 2006 .

[8]  Franz Rothlauf,et al.  Agent-Based Patient Scheduling in Hospitals , 2006, Multiagent Engineering.

[9]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  Programming Multi-Agent Systems in AgentSpeak using Jason (Wiley Series in Agent Technology) , 2007 .

[10]  Andreas Klinkert,et al.  Surgical case scheduling as a generalized job shop scheduling problem , 2008, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[11]  Mark S. Fox,et al.  Intelligent Scheduling , 1998 .

[12]  Walter Van de Velde,et al.  Agents Breaking Away , 1996, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[13]  Boi Faltings,et al.  Incentive Compatible Multiagent Constraint Optimization , 2005, WINE.

[14]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  Introduction to multiagent systems , 2001 .

[15]  Abdul Sattar,et al.  Intelligent Scheduling in Complex Dynamic Distributed Environments , 2007 .

[16]  Anand S. Rao,et al.  AgentSpeak(L): BDI Agents Speak Out in a Logical Computable Language , 1996, MAAMAW.

[17]  Bradley P. Allen,et al.  Job-Shop Scheduling: An Investigation in Constraint-Directed Reasoning , 1982, AAAI.

[18]  Abdul Sattar,et al.  An Efficient Algorithm for Solving Dynamic Complex DCOP Problems , 2009, 2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology.

[19]  Frédéric Grimaud,et al.  Optimization methods for a stochastic surgery planning problem , 2009 .

[20]  Pierre Ladet,et al.  OPERATING ROOMS SCHEDULING , 2006 .

[21]  Makoto Yokoo,et al.  An asynchronous complete method for distributed constraint optimization , 2003, AAMAS '03.

[22]  Albert Jones,et al.  Survey of Job Shop Scheduling Techniques , 1999 .

[23]  Sankalp Khanna,et al.  Distributed Constraint Optimization and Scheduling in Dynamic Environments , 2010 .

[24]  Boi Faltings,et al.  A Scalable Method for Multiagent Constraint Optimization , 2005, IJCAI.