Agent-based planning and evaluation of working times in hospitals

As hospital patients require care 24 hours a day throughout the year, the ability of hospital staff to work shifts is indispensable. From the perspective of hospital operation, ensuring patient care is the main priority for the compilation of work schedules. Personal working hour preferences, which sometimes include requests for recurring time slots, can only be considered as a second priority, if at all. Therefore, work schedules that are exclusively tailored towards the hospital&s;s operational objectives can cause time-related difficulties and make it problematic for the staff to accommodate their professional and private lives. Consequently, the objective of setting work schedules should not solely be limited to achieving the operating objectives, but should also include fulfilment of staff-related goals. The scheduling preferences of the staff should be taken into greater consideration in order to achieve a better compatibility of the employees’ private and professional spheres of life.