Home healthcare network design with sustainability and inventory considerations

Malek Masmoudi, Ali Cheaitou and M. Zied Babai

International Journal of Production Research, 2025, vol. 63, issue 21, 7998-8025

Abstract: The growing demand for healthcare services, coupled with the challenges posed by increasing urbanisation, high hospitalisation costs, and environmental concerns, underscores the need for efficient and sustainable home healthcare (HHC) networks. This study proposes a stochastic mixed-integer programming model for designing sustainable HHC networks, with a focus on the urban context of Dubai, UAE. It models facility location and staffing decisions, demand allocation, and inventory transshipment strategies, addressing economic, environmental, and social sustainability pillars. Key contributions include the incorporation of environmental sustainability through CO2 emission reduction, the modelling of personnel transfer between HHC centres to minimise layoffs and promote social sustainability, and the consideration of equipment transshipment to achieve economies of scale in procurement. The model accounts for demand uncertainty, service times, travel times, and projected population growth over a multi-year planning horizon. The optimisation model is solved using sample average approximation (SAA) and tested using real-world data from Dubai. The results reveal significant managerial insights, including the benefits of centralising resource procurement, reallocating HHC personnel, and resource sharing across facilities. This study provides a comprehensive framework for the design and management of HHC networks, offering practical insights for urban healthcare systems, which aims to balance cost-efficiency with environmental and social sustainability.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00207543.2025.2509152 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tprsxx:v:63:y:2025:i:21:p:7998-8025

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TPRS20

DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2025.2509152

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Research is currently edited by Professor A. Dolgui

More articles in International Journal of Production Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().