In this paper, we study tractable planning methods for robot navigation under uncertainty, with a focus on office and hospital delivery tasks. \Ve demonstrate how exponential utili ty functions can be used to model given risk-sensitive attitudes or soft deadlines, and how planning problems that involve such utility functions can be solved efficiently with probabilistic planning techniques.

Health care systems in many countries are experiencing a growing demand while their resources remain limited. The discrepancy between demand and capacity creates many problems – long waiting times for treatment, overcrowding in hospital wards, high workload, etc. More efficient delivery of health care services can be achieved by better planning of its resources so that the mismatch between dema...

OBJECTIVES To describe and evaluate the priority-setting element of a hospital's strategic planning process. METHODS Qualitative case study and evaluation against the conditions of 'accountability for reasonableness' of a strategic planning process at a large urban university-affiliated hospital. RESULTS The hospital's strategic planning process met the conditions of 'accountability for rea...

This paper describes and evaluates the budgeting and planning processes in public hospitals in Kenya. We used a qualitative case study approach to examine these processes in two hospitals in Kenya. We collected data by in-depth interviews of national level policy makers, hospital managers, and frontline practitioners in the case study hospitals (n = 72), a review of documents, and non-participa...

Hospital case mix and capacity planning involves the decision making both on patient volumes that can be taken care of at a hospital and on resource requirements and capacity management. In this research, to advance both the hospital resource efficiency and the health care service level, a multilevel integrative approach to the planning problem is proposed on the basis of mathematical programmi...

Hospital case mix and capacity planning involves the decision making both on patient volumes that can be taken care of at a hospital and on resource requirements and capacity management. In this research, to advance both the hospital resource efficiency and the health care service level, a multilevel integrative approach to the planning problem is proposed on the basis of mathematical programmi...

The metric of "bed numbers" is commonly used in hospital planning, but it fails to capture key aspects of how hospital services are delivered. Drawing on a study of innovative hospital projects in Europe, we argue that hospital capacity planning should not be based on beds, but rather on the ability to deliver processes. We propose using approaches that are based on manufacturing theory such as...

introduction surgical site infection is a common side effect of surgeries that causes an increase in morbidity, mortality , patient length of stay in the hospital and hospital expenses. quality management as an organizational strategy helps improve working processes and enhance hospital productivity. method this study aimed to examine the impact of applying a quality management technique on red...

One hundred staff in three acute care public hospitals were asked about their perceptions of successes and failures of their discharge planning activities. The intention was to highlight ways in which the quality of discharge planning could be improved within the acute hospital setting. Generally staff described failures more commonly than successes, with a number of key failures being identifi...