A smarter way to deploy healthcare workers during disease outbreaks
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How dynamic scheduling reallocates healthcare staff under uncertainty
view moreCredit: Wang Z., Tang S., Zhang J.
During disease outbreaks, healthcare systems often face rapidly changing medical demand and uneven distribution of healthcare workers across regions. While cross-regional support can help relieve local shortages, traditional deployment strategies may become less effective as disease conditions evolve. Furthermore, healthcare workers themselves may face infection risks, which can reduce the available workforce and further complicate resource allocation decisions.
In a recent study published in the Journal of Management Science and Engineering, a team of researchers from Shandong University and University of Science and Technology of China developed a dynamic scheduling approach to improve the deployment of healthcare workers during disease outbreaks. The study addresses an important question: how can healthcare resources be allocated efficiently when both medical demand and workforce availability are uncertain? The team’s findings offer new insights for healthcare managers and policymakers seeking to strengthen resource coordination during complex health crises.
The researchers first developed a multi-objective optimization model that considers healthcare worker infection risks and uncertain medical demand. “By incorporating disease development predictions and changes in available healthcare capacity, our model enables decision-makers to adjust deployment strategies as conditions change,” shares co-corresponding author Jianghua Zhang. “It also considers multiple management goals, including improving deployment efficiency, maintaining regional fairness, and satisfying healthcare needs.”
The researchers found that dynamic cross-regional scheduling can effectively reduce mismatches between healthcare worker supply and demand. “Compared with approaches that ignore workforce risks, our proposed method provides solutions that better reflect actual healthcare capacity during outbreaks,” says Zhang. “The model also remains more reliable when future medical demand is uncertain, helping decision-makers balance efficiency, fairness, and service needs.”
Notably, effective healthcare worker allocation requires strategies that can adapt to changing conditions rather than relying on fixed deployment plans. “Our study provides a quantitative approach to support more flexible and reliable healthcare resource management during public health emergencies,” adds Zhang.
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Contact author details: Jianghua Zhang, School of Management, Shandong University; School of Public Policy & Management, University of Science and Technology of China, zhangjianghua@sdu.edu.cn
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Journal
Journal of Management Science and Engineering
Method of Research
Computational simulation/modeling
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Dynamic cross-regional scheduling of healthcare staff during infectious disease outbreaks: A multi-objective robust optimization model
COI Statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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