A Feasible Nurse Routing Plan for the Elderly: Quality and Spatial Trade-Offs

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to promote links between researchers and practitioners of planning and operations scheduling in eldercare, where the logistics of nursing and other services at home for seniors should be optimally scheduled. Our goal is to create a feasible routing plan, minimize transportation costs while keeping in mind the seniors' personal preferences. As suggested by researchers in delivery activities, the service level is ensured or further enhanced by fixing appointment times or at least narrowing the time windows, in which the service shall be started. We examined the impact on tour length of introducing fixed appointment times in care delivery for seniors, in order to avoid variability of it due to the uncertainty of traffic. The results confirmed our presupposition that fixed appointment times will make the tour longer and the number of required employees higher, in dependence of the time window. Higher the time window more certainly the appointment will be realised in-time as previously determined. The case study on the real data of a Care Centre for the Elderly in one of the Hungarian municipalities shows that the fixed appointment time policy, which would increase the satisfaction of seniors, would require the employment of one nurse in excess at a given spatial dispersion of seniors under regular care. As we quantified the capacity perspective, a trade-off situation emerged between improving the service quality and reaching more patients' locations.