Full Shift Builder
The Full Shift Builder will create a work pattern that will provide the levels of cover that you ask for, but stay within the New Deal rules if possible. You must specify:
· The number of doctors
· The maximum average weekly hours of work
· The doctor numbers required on duty throughout the week
· The shifts to be used in the work pattern
More details are given in sections below.
Click the "Go" button on the toolbar, and the computer will begin searching for a satisfactory work pattern. The method used is similar to evolution: a set of randomly generated work patterns is created and then, by a process of gradual changes and selection of the best, a set of work patterns that satisfy the specified requirements and the New Deal will gradually evolve.
The speed of this process depends on the speed of the computer and the difficulty of the task. If not enough doctors have been specified for the amount of cover required, it may prove impossible for the computer to find any work patterns that give enough cover and are New Deal compliant.
The results pane of the screen shows the process of generation and examination of work patterns. The current best score field shows the progress of work pattern generation and evaluation. Any score below 200 is good, a score between 200 and 800 may be satisfactory but a score above 800 will probably not have the required cover, not be New Deal compliant or have other flaws. It is possible that any patterns could be significantly improved by simple manual adjustments. The process used by the computer is one of making random changes in the hope of improving the pattern. It can take a long time to hit on a simple change that would be obvious to the trained eye. If a reasonable score has not been obtained after examining 500,000 patterns, the problem may be impossible to solve.
Click the "Stop" button on the toolbar to stop the process of searching for better work patterns. A summary display of the best work pattern will be shown in the results pane. It is possible to get a full analysis of this work pattern by clicking the "Analysis" button on the toolbar.
The system always works on a "population" of 200 work patterns. All of these work patterns can be seen by selecting the pattern from the pull down list headed "Select Pattern by Rank". The pull down list is ranked by score, the lowest score first. Tick boxes show if all the required cover is present and if the pattern is New Deal compliant. When an item from this list is selected by a mouse click, details of the pattern are displayed in the table below. A full analysis can be obtained by using the "Analysis" button in the toolbar.
If none of the patterns are satisfactory, it is possible to click the "Resume" button in the toolbar to allow the computer to continue processing in attempts to find a better pattern.
When a satisfactory pattern has been found, click the "Use the Pattern" button on the toolbar. This will cause the generated pattern to be passed to the currently selected work group. The Shift Builder screen can be closed, and the work pattern adjusted or analysed on the normal work pattern input screen. Clicking the "Use the Pattern" button does not save the work pattern. It must be saved normally using the "Save and Exit" button on the work pattern input screen.
None of the generated work patterns may be satisfactory but could form a basis for use with a little manual adjustment. It is also possible that simply starting the generation process from scratch (click the "Go" button again) will produce a better set of patterns. The process of work pattern generation is essentially random, so each time the process is started, the end result will probably be a different work pattern.
Specification of cover requirements
Each day of the week is divided into four sections:
· Morning
· Afternoon
· Evening
· Night
The strict meaning of these four divisions is never defined. The important point is that when duty codes are defined, each one is specified as covering one or more of these four sections.
In the "Minimum number required on a duty" table fill in the number of doctors required on duty for each section of each day of the week. Buttons are provided to make this process a little quicker.
Fill in the cover requirements for Monday and then click the "Copy Monday" button. This will copy the Monday cover requirements to all the other weekdays. Fill in for the Saturday cover requirements and then click the "Copy Saturday" button. This will copy the Saturday cover requirements to Sunday.
Shifts to be used.
By default, a set of commonly used full shift duties are provided. These are:
· A. Normal day covering the morning and afternoon
· B. Morning
· C. Afternoon
· D. Long day, covering morning afternoon and evening.
· E. Night
The start and end times of these duties may be changed as required to fit local practice. Extra duties may be added. For example, there may be a need for a shift that covers evenings only.
Saving the requirements data.
All the information entered in the requirements pane may be saved to file so that it can be retrieved for later use. Click the "Save" button on the toolbar. You will be asked to provide a file name and select a location for the saved data. All files containing cover requirements data are given the file extension WCR.
The cover requirements data can be retrieved by using the "Open" button on the toolbar. Navigate to the directory where the file is stored, and double click on it to open it.
It is not possible to resume processing on a saved set of cover requirements. When they have been loaded, you must use the "go" button to start the generation process from scratch.
