Multi-objective layout optimization of hospital outpatient clinics based on NSGA II

Abstract

This study utilizes an improved NSGA-II algorithm to conduct a multi-objective optimization of the hospital outpatient department layout. By simultaneously incorporating patient walking distance, hospital operating costs, patient waiting time, and medical staff work efficiency as optimization objectives, and adopting an adaptive population size adjustment strategy, this paper optimizes the existing outpatient layout in a case study of a three-story outpatient building at Panzhihua Central Hospital. The results show that the new plan reduces patient walking distance by 57.2%, shortens waiting time by 59%, and enhances medical staff collaboration efficiency, while only increasing costs by 5.6%. This demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of the improved NSGA-II method in handling complex multi-objective optimization problems for outpatient layouts. The research findings provide a reference for the rational allocation of hospital outpatient resources and the improvement of service quality. Additionally, this paper discusses the applicability and limitations of the study and proposes future research directions, including validating the method’s effectiveness in hospitals of various types and sizes, incorporating dynamic optimization and real-time data, and deeply integrating with hospital information systems.