Authors: (including presenting author): :
Man JYH(1), Law TT(1), Lam YC(1), Cheung PC(1), To WK(1)
Affiliation: :
(1) Physiotherapy Department, Pok Oi Hospital
Keyword 4: :
artificial intelligence
Keyword 6: :
staff satisfaction
Introduction: :
Assigning staff to holiday duties in healthcare presents challenges, due to the intricate needs involving staff specialities, experience, work schedules, and compliance with hospital policies. Crafting the annual holiday duty roster for over 70 staff members in the Physiotherapy Department at Pok Oi Hospital has been a manual, time-consuming task, often requiring at least a week of effort. This study addresses the gap in optimising roster creation processes by leveraging a readily available Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to enhance operational efficiency, staff satisfaction and patient care quality.
Objectives: :
1. To evaluate the impact of the new AI-generated rosters perceived by staff responsible for man-power planning.
2. To analyse the end users’ satisfaction with AI-generated rosters.
Methodology: :
The AI-assisted rostering was developed using Microsoft Excel integrated with AI model. Speciality, experience, and work schedule of department staff were summarised and analysed by AI. Hard and soft constraints grounded on department and hospital policies were prompted to AI. This workflow required only basic computer knowledge to utilise the familiar platform. Following the implementation of the AI workflow, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the staff responsible for manpower planning. The interview was analysed thematically. Additionally, questionnaires were distributed to all department staff.
Result & Outcome: :
The hybrid AI workflow took 3 hours to develop and generated an empirical holiday duty roster within a minute. All hard constraints and most soft constraints were satisfied, requiring minimal manual refinements. The final holiday duty was made accessible via staff’s personal electronic devices, replacing the paper-based roster. The interviewee noted the AI's automatic rostering feature was most beneficial. It eliminated the need for manual balancing of duty loads among staff for a full year. The saved administrative time could be redirected towards clinical tasks and planning for future staffing needs. A simple prompt could instantly summarise individual staff duties and provide information when needed. It was suggested that integrating work schedules from a different platform could be automated by AI. The questionnaire received a response rate of 69%. 94.2% of respondents found the new AI-based holiday rostering system more convenient. 69% believed that it improved team communication. Over half agreed that the AI roster enhanced fairness. More than 70% supported the continued development and use of AI-generated work schedules.
