Abstract:

The health sector is the head of the sectors that should be the most planned in a society. It is important that shifts of the medical staff in the hospitals which comprise the largest part of this sector be planned in a fair and efficient way. In particular, the medical staff in emergency departments of hospitals should be minimally affected by situations like attention deficit and fatigue in order to they can rapidly intervene in patients and get the right diagnosis. In order to do this, shift schedules of the medical staff must be planned optimally. Additionally, the excessive intensity of hospitals especially in emergency departments during the Covid-19 outbreak has exhausted the medical staff physically and mentally. Based on this point, this study aimed to optimally plan the shift schedule of the medical staff in the emergency department of a hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic period. In line with the purpose of the study, information about the shift schedule of the medical staff in all areas of the emergency department and the functioning of the emergency department in all areas in February 2021 of a state hospital in Gümüşhane was obtained from the nurse in charge of the emergency department. According to these data and information, the 0-1 integer goal programming model was established. In the coding and solution of the model, the GAMS 39.3.0 program was used. As a result of the solution of the model, the optimal shift schedule was obtained. In the optimal shift schedule obtained, the number of medical staff required to work daily in all areas of the emergency department was provided, and the total working times in each of the shifts for each medical staff were distributed as balanced as possible.

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