Analysis and planning of dual professional education at vocational schools of the healthcare sector using Analytics

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jens O. Brunner
• Subject Area: Management and Marketing
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 511896464

The shortage of skilled workers in Germany is one of the biggest problems the labor market is currently facing. Particularly in the healthcare sector, this shortage has intensified significantly in recent years and has further increased by the enormous workload during the Corona pandemic. In this project, we therefore address the question of how the planning of the professional dual education for nurses can be improved through organizational and operational measures. Fair, long-term and holistic planning of professional healthcare training can therefore be an essential element in increasing the attractiveness and acceptance of the nursing professions. The professional training takes place in regularly alternating blocks of theoretical education in a dual vocational school and practical blocks of on-the-job training on a nursing station of a hospital or a nursing facility. It lasts a total of 3 years. The vocational schools are responsible for all relevant planning steps, related to the professional education and for compliance with the complex rules that are specified in curricula by the state ministries. In addition, there is a framework of organizational constraints for school and hospital operations. The multitude of requirements gives rise to several hierarchically structured and interdependent planning problems. For none of these problems solution procedures, estimations of the solution quality or even algorithms exist, which can guarantee an optimal solution. Therefore, in this research project we will investigate the following topics. We will develop generic optimization models that can be used to describe and solve all planning problems. In doing so, the educational success of the students must be ensured and the available resources have to be used optimally. For this purpose, it is necessary to quantify the objectives of the different stakeholders (students, school, nursing stations) in order to be able to find a fair trade-off between them. To solve the models, we will identify and implement efficient algorithms of Operations Research/Management Science and Analytics. We will evaluate the algorithms using real-world problem data. All of this will enable further research projects related to dual vocational education in general.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants