Balanced patient assignment to healthcare centres through dispatching rules

Aydin Teymourifar and Maria A. M. Trindade

Health Systems, 2025, vol. 14, issue 2, 104-118

Abstract: In the realm of public health management, ensuring a balanced assignment of patients to healthcare centres is a critical concern. This study introduces a novel approach for this purpose, utilizing dispatching rules. Highlighting the need for an easily applicable approach to regulating patient flow efficiently, the study shows the benefit of utilizing dispatching rules in healthcare management. Innovatively, this research departs from traditional approaches by introducing a multi-objective model grounded in the concept of sectorization. This model, unique in the public health literature, leverages dispatching rules to simplify complex, dynamic patient assignment scenarios. Incorporating various factors, the model is simulated, and the optimization of the dispatching rules is carried out. The study’s findings demonstrate that the optimized dispatching rule significantly enhances the model’s efficacy in balancing patient assignments across healthcare centres. This improvement is pivotal in addressing the uneven distribution of healthcare resources. This research makes a substantial contribution to the public health literature by offering a novel and practical solution for balancing patient load among healthcare centres. Its successful application in simulated environments suggests a promising pathway for real-world implementations, potentially leading to more efficient healthcare systems and improved patient care outcomes. We suggest an innovative approach to evenly distributing healthcare workloads, aiming for a more equitable allocation of tasks.Distinct from previous studies, we underscore the critical role of dispatching rules in balancing patient distribution.We demonstrate the tangible advantages of these rules in managing public healthcare as a complex system, emphasizing their importance in enhancing overall healthcare accessibility.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/20476965.2024.2408543

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