Optimizing Staffing for a New Medical Facility

Abstract When a new medical facility is planned, there is a need for staff members of various job roles and levels. For each of these roles, there are several different classifications for staff. Each of these classification groups have their respective advantages and disadvantages in terms of cost, productivity, new ideas, and other characteristics. These characteristics, which have a continuous range of values, differ for each type of job role. In addition, there are boundary conditions, which only have binary value, that also limit the proportion for each classification group. While the number of classifications is not limited, this publication will consider three primary classifications for staff: early career hires, experienced hires, and (experienced) transfers. This article details a method for using these metrics and boundary conditions to optimize the staffing using a visualization approach. While the equations for the metrics and boundary conditions can be solved directly, they do not answer how the optimum solution is obtained in the way that visualizations can. Since each facility and location may have its own unique requirements, this article discusses general principles and mathematical processes rather than exact prescriptions.