In this paper, we present a scatter search algorithm for the well-known nurse scheduling problem (NSP). This problem aims at the construction of roster schedules for nurses taking both hard and soft constraints into account. The objective is to minimize the total preference cost of the nurses and the total penalty cost from violations of the soft constraints. The problem is known to be NP-hard....

The pilot study reported in this paper was devised to develop and compare service delivery models that would achieve the provision of high quality parenteral therapy care to patients in the Gold Coast District Health Service community. All data were collected on 113 patients for a 12-month period, January to December 1996. The study compared the provision of outreach nursing services and contra...

The PROMETHEE is a significant method for evaluating alternatives with respect to criteria in multi-criteria decision-making problems. It is characterized by many types of preference functions that are used for assigning the differences between alternatives in judgements. This paper proposes a preference of green suppliers using the PROMETHEE under the usual criterion preference functions. Comp...

Allowing long-term care (LTC) residents to make choices about their daily life activities is a central tenet of resident-centered care. This study examined whether staff and family rated care episodes involving choice differently from care episodes not involving choice. Seventeen nurse aide and 15 family participants were shown paired video vignettes of care interactions. Participants were aske...

Suzanne M. Burns is a professor of nursing and an advanced practice nurse in the medical intensive care unit at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Mechanical ventilation is one of the most commonly used technologies in critical care. Despite the prevalence of ventilators, care planning is heavily influenced by anecdote and clinical preference. A vast array of ventilator modes and mo...