Journal article
Development of a decision support model for scheduling clinical studies and assigning medical personnel
Department of Production Management, Technical University Berlin, Wilmersdorfer Str. 148, 10585 Berlin, Germany. ho.guenther@pm-berlin.net1
Clinical studies for the development of new drugs in the pharmaceutical industry consist of a number of individual tasks which have to be carried out in a pre-defined chronological order. Each task requires certain types of medical personnel. This paper investigates the scheduling of clinical studies to be performed during a short-term planning horizon, the allocation of workforce between the studies, and the assignment of individual employees to tasks.
Instead of developing a complex monolithic decision model, a hierarchical modelling approach is suggested. In the first stage, a compact integer optimization model is solved in order to determine the start-off times of the studies and the required staffing while taking the limited availability of personnel into account.
The objective is to minimize total staffing costs. The assignment of individual employees to tasks is then made in the second stage of the procedure using a binary optimization model.
| Language: | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Kluwer Academic Publishers |
| Year: | 2004 |
| Pages: | 305-17 |
| ISSN: | 15729389 and 13869620 |
| Types: | Journal article |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10729-004-7539-x |
Clinical Trials as Topic Decision Support Techniques Economic Policy Economics / Management Science Feasibility Studies Finance /Banking Humans Personnel Staffing and Scheduling Public Finance & Economics Public Health/Gesundheitswesen clinical studies optimization model personnel scheduling pharmaceutical industry task assignment
