Online stochastic optimization of radiotherapy patient scheduling

Antoine Legrain (), Marie-Andrée Fortin (), Nadia Lahrichi () and Louis-Martin Rousseau ()

Health Care Management Science, 2015, vol. 18, issue 2, 110-123

Abstract: The effective management of a cancer treatment facility for radiation therapy depends mainly on optimizing the use of the linear accelerators. In this project, we schedule patients on these machines taking into account their priority for treatment, the maximum waiting time before the first treatment, and the treatment duration. We collaborate with the Centre Intégré de Cancérologie de Laval to determine the best scheduling policy. Furthermore, we integrate the uncertainty related to the arrival of patients at the center. We develop a hybrid method combining stochastic optimization and online optimization to better meet the needs of central planning. We use information on the future arrivals of patients to provide an accurate picture of the expected utilization of resources. Results based on real data show that our method outperforms the policies typically used in treatment centers. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Patient scheduling; Radiotherapy booking; Stochastic optimization; Online optimization; Dynamic scheduling; MSC 90B36; MSC 90C15; MSC 90C39 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10729-014-9270-6

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