Home health care routing and scheduling problem with different groups of patients and health workers

Abstract

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigate a different routing and scheduling problem in the field of home health care (HHC) management system. The purpose of this paper is to route and schedule the workday of health workers, assign the patients to suitable health workers, make accurate decisions to minimize costs, provide timely services and, in general, enhance the efficiency of HHC centers. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to assign health workers to patients. The model considers health professionals with different skills, namely nurses and physicians. Additionally, three groups of patients are considered: patients who need a nurse, patients who need a physician and patients who need both. In the third group, the nurse must be present at the patient’s home following the physician’s visit in order to perform the required tasks. Findings: The results of this study show a reduction in costs which results from the fewer health workers employed and dispatched in comparison with traditional approaches. With the help of our solution approach and model, HHC centers may not only successfully reduce their costs but also manage to meet their patients’ demands by assigning suitable nurses and physicians. Originality/value: Previous studies have often focused on problems involving only one group of health professionals and rarely address problems involving multiple groups. The authors consider this a shortcoming, because in many cases, patients should be visited several times and by various health professionals.