Scheduling preparation of doses for a chemotherapy service

DOI 10.1007 /s10479-009-0624-2 http://www.springerlink.com/content/j15506t4m7377312/; International audience; A fast realization of drugs is an important part in the quality of service of a hospital. In this paper we propose a scheduling method for the preparation of chemotherapy doses in order to reduce the patient waiting time. Two approaches have been defined: an off-line approach and a real time approach. The off-line approach is using a linear programming model for minimizing the maximum tardiness of jobs in a production day. This method is re-used during the real-time resolution combined with a greedy algorithm. The solution obtained respects constraints on the production center and the hospital organization. Our model is currently used in software which helps the decision maker of the service and allows increasing the patient satisfaction and the productivity of the service.