Scheduling of nurses: A case study of a Kuwaiti health care unit

This paper demonstrates the ease and invaluable benefits of applying simple Operations Research (OR) tools to a common and sensitive problem in health care. Specifically, it investigates the problem of designing timetables for nurses working in Kuwaiti health care units that operate around the clock. It details the constraints of the problem, specifies the objective, proposes a mixed integer program, solves the mathematical model for the case of a specific health care unit using an off-the-shelf optimizer, and explains how the model can account for other real life context-dependent constraints. The computational investigation demonstrates the simplicity of automatically generating timetables that have four to five-week review periods and any lead times. In addition, it proves the superiority of the obtained timetables to those generated manually by the head nurse, and proves the feasibility of taking into consideration the nurses’ requests for duty and rest shifts. Moreover, it illustrates the applicability of the model to a hospital ward where a variety of special constraints such as historical data and vacations are in vigor. Generating the timetables using the proposed model contributes to improving the level of satisfaction of nurses and to enhancing their job performance; subsequently, it offers a safer environment for patients. Finally, the paper underscores the benefits of popularizing OR in the health care sector. An appropriate knowledge of OR enables health care personnel to solve vital problems independently and efficiently.