Policy-Agents to Support CSCW in the Case of Hospital-Scheduling

Computer Supported Co-operative Work encircles collaboration of different parties in order to achieve a common goal. Human beings or organizations made up of human beings are conducted by preferences, goals, aims, intentions, etc., which in general are not consistent, i.e., they cannot be summed up to a common goal without conflicting individual preferences. For the case of hospital scheduling, we show the concept of a policy-agent that is able to represent individual preferences and goals, and thus, may act as a personal assistant to support solution of standard problems like scheduling of operating room activities. The main focus of the chapter lies in the representation of preferences and goals, such that adaptations to changed environments may be done easily. In addition, we show how interaction will work. Not within the scope of the chapter are questions of optimality of any scheduling algorithm. Rather, we focus on negotiation processes and acceptable negotiation results. The implementation of the concepts shown takes place at time. My thanks go to the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for its support.