The Optimization between Physician Satisfaction and Hospital Profit in Cross-Hospital Scheduling—A Case Study of Some Hospitals in Taiwan

In recent years, the majority of the population has preferred to go to large hospitals regardless of the severity of their illnesses, resulting in a waste of medical resources. In view of this situation, the government has proposed a cross-hospital integration plan to promote the integration of medical resources. Hospitals that provide support can not only increase their income but also extend their medical coverage to other regions and get wide access to more patients. While previous studies mainly focused on the internal shift scheduling of hospitals, this study took into account both the internal hospital and the support to branch hospitals and particularly explored the financial benefits generated by the provision of support and the satisfaction of physicians on shift scheduling. Decision makers can give different weight values according to the management needs and then determine the most appropriate physician shift schedule according to the final decision value. The shift-schedule-building system developed in this study could be used to quickly calculate the most appropriate shift schedule according to the actual needs, which could replace the time-consuming method of manual scheduling and improve physician satisfaction and hospital financial income.