Design and Implementation of An Automated Scheduler for Pharmacists in A Local Hospital
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2026.33.4.10667Abstract
To deliver adequate healthcare to the community, it is crucial to lower expenses and enhance the working environments for healthcare professionals, such as nurses, doctors, and pharmacists. Traditionally, pharmacists were not considered a significant component of the healthcare system, as their role primarily involved medication delivery. However, over the past few decades, the role of pharmacists has evolved significantly, making them a crucial and integral part of the healthcare staff due to their involvement in new missions. Consequently, the pharmacists' community must be considered within the broader healthcare system. Pharmacists now face new challenges, such as unbalanced workloads and burnout. This paper examines a case study involving pharmacists at a local hospital. Pharmacist scheduling was traditionally performed manually, a process that proved both time-consuming and error-prone. Moreover, the resulting schedules often failed to meet pharmacists’ preferences, leading to dissatisfaction. A decision support system (DSS) for optimizing pharmacist scheduling in a hospital is developed in this paper. This DSS aims to automatically and efficiently generate well-balanced schedules that satisfy the pharmacists as much as possible. Balancing workload, considering pharmacist preferences, and meeting daily coverage requirements are challenging tasks that are difficult to accomplish manually without the assistance of a computer. Therefore, a mathematical model, specifically a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model, was developed to generate an optimal schedule for pharmacists. This model considers individual pharmacists’ preferences, their ability to fulfill duties, workload balancing, and annual leave requirements. The model has been implemented, and a graphical user interface has been developed. This interface allows users to input the required number of pharmacists needed each month, the preferences and also allows automatic generation of the schedules. An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the proposed DSS's performance. As a result of the automated schedules, overtime has been eliminated completely, and pharmacists' preferences have been accommodated. The proposed DSS automates pharmacist scheduling while considering human preferences and fairness criteria, offering a practical tool for hospital administrators to enhance efficiency and staff satisfaction.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The Author(s) must formally transfer each article's copyright before publication in the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING. Such transfer enables the Journal to defend itself against plagiarism and other forms of copyright infringement. Your cooperation is appreciated.
You agree that the copyright of your article to be published in the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - THEORY, APPLICATIONS, AND PRACTICE is hereby transferred, throughout the World and for the full term and all extensions and renewals thereof, to INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - THEORY, APPLICATIONS, AND PRACTICE.
The Author(s) reserve(s): (a) the trademark rights and patent rights, if any, and (b) the right to use all or part of the information contained in this article in future, non-commercial works of the Author's own, or, if the article is a "work-for-hire" and made within the scope of the Author's employment, the employer may use all or part of the information contained in this article for intra-company use, provided the usual acknowledgments are given regarding copyright notice and reference to the original publication.
The Author(s) warrant(s) that the article is Author's original work and has not been published before. If excerpts from copyrighted works are included, the Author will obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the article's sources.
The author also warrants that the article contains no libelous or unlawful statements and does not infringe on the rights of others. If the article was prepared jointly with other Author(s), the Author agrees to inform the co-Author(s) of the terms of the copyright transfer and to sign on their behalf; or in the case of a "work-for-hire," the employer or an authorized representative of the employer.
The journal does not provide the author copy of the final paper when it is published. The author(s) can make(s) a subscription to INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - THEORY, APPLICATIONS, AND PRACTICE if they want to get the final paper that has already been published.
The journal is registered with the Library of Congress (ISSN # 1943-670X). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the journal.
The author reserves patent and trademark rights and the right to use all or part of the information contained in the article in future non-commercial works.
