Validating Algorithmic Optimization of Patient Allocation at Medical Schools: Which Patient is the Best Fit for Undergraduate Training?

Abstract

Limited access to patients is an increasing problem in medical education. In order to reduce patient shortage, we previously proposed a strategy for assigning patients to courses of future curricula based on routinely available patient and educational data. However, this algorithm did not consider challenges of an existing curriculum, thus greatly limiting its applicability in actual practise. This paper introduces a corresponding refinement of the algorithm together with its implementation of three algorithm variants approaches for resolving medical school courses that are affected by patient shortage. An evaluation of the new approach yielded that approximately two thirds of all respective course sessions could be resolved by applying several variants of the algorithm, each of which proved to have different strengths.