Double direct progressive filling algorithm to find the double MMF nurse schedule at a pediatric intensive care unit

Abstract

In this study, the aim is to achieve max-min fair (MMF) resource allocation and min-max fair (MMF) load distribution for nurse schedules at the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at a local Saudi hospital. In this paper, an exact algorithmic approach, namely the double direct progressive-filling algorithm (DDPFA), is proposed to achieve the double MMF solution. This algorithm is composed of two phases where the resources are fairly maximized in the first phase, and the loads are fairly minimized in the second phase. For more illustration, the proposed algorithm output (model 1) is compared with other conventional objective specifically maximizing utilization (model 2), and maximizing the minimum resources and minimizing the maximum loads (model 3). The results of the proposed approach outperform the other tested approaches in terms of bed utilization and fairness.