The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

Graph Coloring: A Heuristic way to Optimize the

Doctor’s Availability in India
Narendra Manghani
Department of Mathematics,

Acropolis Institute of Technology & Research, Indore [M.P]

narendramanghani@acropolis.in

Dr. Satish Talreja

Department of Mathematics

Acropolis Institute of Technology & Research, Indore [M.P]

satishtalreja@acropolis.in

Abstract : Doctor Patient ratio in many of the states in India, is really a point of concerned for Medical
Council of India, Central and State Governments. The health of citizens is always an asset for any
developing country, and unfortunately India is really going through a worse phase in the dimension. In this
paper, we are going to propose a heuristic approach of graph coloring for optimizing the resources for
hospitals in India. The result will help in compensating the loss of having less numbers of doctors
available in the country (as asked by WHO). The paper is a heuristic proposal and branch for the further
development is wide opened.

Keywords : Color, chromatic, vertices, doctor, patient etc.

1. Introduction
Graph coloring is an important concept in graph theory. It is a special kind of problem in which we
assign colors to certain elements of the graph along with certain constraints. The proper coloring of a
graph is the coloring of the vertices and edges with minimal number of colors such that no two vertices
should have the same color. As per the report of World Health Organization (WHO), India has
one doctor for every 1596 patients available. This makes the situation very challenging as far as
optimization of medical professionals is concern. In this paper, we are going to use concept of graph
coloring for optimizing the availability of doctors in a specific city.

2. Crisis of Doctor–Patient Ratio in India

In India, if allopathy doctors alone are considered, the ratio is 1:1596 i.e. on every 1596 patients we are
1 doctor in our country. According to the Medical Council of India, 10.4 lakh doctors are registered with
the state branches of the council. However, not more than 8.33 lakh MBBS doctors are in active service.
Though this ratio meets the standard asked by World Health Organization (WHO), but the reality is
just the flipside of this. Following tables shows the actual scene of people per doctor in India. We have
taken 12 states here, 6 each in category of worst and best condition.

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The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

Worst Best
States People per doctor States People per doctor
Jharkhand 8180 Tamil Nadu 253
Haryana 6037 Delhi 334
Chhattisgarh 4338 Karnataka 507
Uttar Pradesh 3767 Kerala 535
Bihar 3207 Goa 713
Himachal Pradesh 3124 Punjab 789

Though this data is self explanatory, but we can observer that how worse the condition is in states
like Jharkhand and Haryana. We are having only 1 doctor on around 8000 people there, and this number
needs a big improvement. Human health is on stack, and we can call it a big crisis for medical fraternity.

In subsequent sections of this paper, we are going to explain the working of graph coloring, and how it
is going to help us to better utilize the available resources. We cannot improve the doctor patient ratio in
these states, but we can surely optimize the working of hospitals, so that no patient is left untreated.

3. Graph Coloring and Chromatic Polynomials:

Graph coloring is nothing but a simple way of labeling graph components such as vertices, edges,
and regions under some constraints. In a graph, no two adjacent vertices, adjacent edges, or adjacent
regions are colored with minimum number of colors. This number is called the chromatic number and the
graph is called a properly colored graph. While graph coloring, the constraints that are set on the graph are
colors, order of coloring, the way of assigning color, etc. The coloring problem has a huge number of
applications in daily life such as Map coloring, networking, Job Scheduling etc.

Fig. 1 A proper vertex coloring of the Petersen graph with 3 colors, the minimum number possible.

We now turn to the number of ways to color a graph G with k colors. Of course, if 𝑘 <χ(G), this is zero.
We seek a function PG(k) giving the number of ways to color G with k colors. Some graphs are easy to do
directly.

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The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

If G is Kn, PG(k)=k(k−1)(k−2)⋯(k−n+1), namely, the number of permutations of k things taken n at a

time. Vertex 1 may be colored any of the k colors, vertex 2 any of the remaining k−1 colors, and so on.
Note that when k<n, PG(k)=0. we may also write PG(k)= 𝑛𝑖=0 𝑠(𝑛, 𝑖) 𝑘 𝑖 .

Applying this concept on Fig.1 gives us the polynomial:

PG(k)=𝑘(𝑘 − 1)5 (𝑘 − 2)4 .

And since minimum number of colors that are required to color the given graph is 3, it is a 3 chromatic
graph.

4. Optimizing Doctor-Patient Ratio using Graph Coloring

Let G (V, E) be a complete weighted graph which represents the geographical position of 6 patients
𝑃𝑖 (1 ≤ 𝑖 ≤ 6) in a city. The weight assigned to the edge connecting 𝑃𝑖 and 𝑃𝑗 represents the distance
between these two patients.

Fig. 2 A complete weighted graph with 6 patients

As discussed in the previous section, we determined the chromatic polynomial for this graph as:

PG(k) = k(k-1)(k-2)(k-3)(k-4)(k-5)

The above equation is chromatic polynomial of the graph shown in Fig. 2 and it is a 6 chromatic graph
(since minimum number of colors required to color it are 6). Refer Fig. 3

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The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

Fig. 3 6 Chromatic graph version of the problem

Our target is to minimize this problem, and mathematically the optimization problem is of minimizing the
chromatic number. A serving hospital of this city is asked to assign the doctors to these patients. A major
challenge for the hospital is to optimize this allotment and use minimum number of doctors to serve all the
patients. This task of optimization can be achieved by the concept of graph coloring, and we are going to
propose this heuristic method in this paper.

Fig. 4 Resultant graph after iteration no. 1

This optimization technique works on the theme of Doctors Allotment (Colors Allotment), and first
iteration of the same gives us the result as shown in Fig. 4

As part of strategy of hospital management, if distance between two patients in the city is five or
less then they will be considered as members of same cohort i.e. same doctor will be allotted to these
patients.

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Procedure starts with allotment of doctor D1 to patient P1(denoted as D1(P1) in Fig. 4). Since patient P2 is
4 units apart from P1 therefore the same doctor(color) is allotted to P2 as well. The dotted line between P1
and P2 indicates that these two vertices are in same cohort. On the other hand, distance between the
patients P1 and P6 is more than 5, therefore they are not in same cohort and different doctors (colors) are
allotted to them.

Now if we continue working on same procedure, and compare all the possibilities with each other, the
concluding shape and structure of the final allotment will be:

Fig. 5 The Complete Resultant graph

This output graph in Fig. 5 is clearly a 3 chromatic graph, and therefore we can conclude that the
minimum number of doctors required to serve all the patients are 3. The two splits of this resultant graph
will look like:

(a) Split-1 (b) Split-2

Fig. 6

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Fig. 6 (a) shows our outcome from one view, which is the decision making criteria for doctors allotment,
and this indicates the policy of allotting same doctor (color) when distance is less than 5 units between two
patients (vertices). Fig. 6 (b) is complement of part (a), which is in support of traditional graph coloring
methodology, and we can clearly observe and conclude that no two adjacent vertices in our decision
making problem are allotted same colors.

Graph 6 (b) is our resultant graph and it is a 3 chromatic graph. Chromatic polynomial for the same is
2 3
PG(k) = 𝑘 𝑘 − 1 𝑘−2

The comparative table of 2 graphs in value will be :-

Original graph (Fig. 2) Resultant graph (Fig. 6(b))

Chromatic polynomial k(k-1)(k-2)(k-3)(k-4)(k-5) 𝑘 𝑘−1 2 𝑘−2 3
PG(k)=0 k=0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. k=0, 1, 2.
Values Count (No. of Doctors
6 3
required)

So, we can say that after optimizing the given situation using graph coloring, no. of doctors got reduced to
3.

5. Conclusion:
After applying the procedure of graph coloring on the mentioned problem of decision making, we can
safely conclude that it is one of the heuristic approaches for doing the optimum allotments. And by
following this method the hospitals can optimize their resources and serves more number of patients. In
this way the doctor patient ratio can be improved in India and the idea is having a great positive impact on
human health. Clubbing human health issues with mathematical graph theory is a new idea, and this
method can come out as a great entry point for many researchers in future. This paper is a small
contribution, and can be followed by large scale work ahead.

6. Reference :
1. M. Alkhateeb, On b-colorings and b-continuity of graphs, Ph.D Thesis, Technische Universitt
Bergakademie, Freiberg, Germany, 2012.
2. N. Deo, Graph Theory with Applications to Engineering and Computer Science, Prentice-Hall of
India, 2007.
3. B. Effanin and H. Kheddouci, The b-chromatic number of some power graphs, Discrete
Mathematics and Theoritical Computer Science, vol. 6, 45-54, 2003.
4. S.K. Vaidya and Rakhimol V. Issac, The b-chromatic number of some path related graphs,
International Journal of Mathematics and Scientific Computing, vol. 4, No. 1, 2014.
5. S.K. Vaidya and M.S. Shukla, b-chromatic number of some cycle related graphs, International
Journal of Mathematics and Soft Computing, vol. 4, pp. 113-127, 2014.

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