A decision support system for scheduling a vaccination campaign during a pandemic emergency: The COVID-19 case

Cristiano Fabbri; Pierfrancesco Ghedini; Marco Leonessi; Enrico Malaguti; Paolo Tubertini

doi:10.1016/j.cie.2023.109068

A decision support system for scheduling a vaccination campaign during a pandemic emergency: The COVID-19 case

Comput Ind Eng. 2023 Mar:177:109068. doi: 10.1016/j.cie.2023.109068. Epub 2023 Feb 2.

Authors

Cristiano Fabbri^{1

2}, Pierfrancesco Ghedini¹, Marco Leonessi¹, Enrico Malaguti³, Paolo Tubertini²

Affiliations

¹ Local Health Authority of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
² Enterprise Information Systems for Integrated Care and Research Data Management, IRCCS Azienda Ospadaliero-Universitaria di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
³ DEI, Università di Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, Bologna, Italy.

Abstract

This paper considers the organization and scheduling of a vaccination campaign during a pandemic emergency. We describe the decision process and introduce an optimization model, which showed a powerful multi-scenario tool for scheduling a campaign in detail within a dynamic and uncertain context. The solution of the model gave the decision maker the possibility to test different settings and have a configurable solution within few seconds, compared with the man-days of effort that would have required a manual schedule. Analysis of a real case study on COVID-19 vaccination campaign in northern Italy showed that the use of such optimized solution allowed to cover the target population within a much shorter time interval, compared to a manual approach.

Keywords: COVID-19; Healthcare; Mathematical model; Scheduling; Vaccination campaign.