Scheduling Sustainable Homecare with Urban Transport and Different Skilled Nurses Using an Approximate Algorithm

Lorenzo Ros-McDonnell, Norina Szander, María Victoria de-la-Fuente-Aragón and Robert Vodopivec
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Lorenzo Ros-McDonnell: Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Industrial Engineering Research Group, 30202 Cartagena, Spain
Norina Szander: Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, Faculty of Organisation Studies in Novo Mesto, 8000 Novo Mesto, Slovenia
María Victoria de-la-Fuente-Aragón: Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Industrial Engineering Research Group, 30202 Cartagena, Spain
Robert Vodopivec: Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, Director, 5290 Sempeter-Vrtojba, Slovenia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 22, 1-14

Abstract: The essential characteristics that distinguish homecare services from other routing and scheduling problems are relatively few patients being spread out over a large urban area, long transport times and several different services being provided. The approach that the authors present herein was developed to solve planning homecare services according to the criterion of increasing social sustainability and incorporating environmentally sustainable transport systems. The objective of this paper is to present a tool to plan the daily work carried out by a homecare service with assigned patients with specific care requirements. It relies on the resources of nurses with different qualifications by assuming costs that depend on both offering the service and the different chosen transport modes. The algorithm manages several priority rules by ensuring that homecare provider goals and standards are met. The developed algorithm was tested according to the weekly homecare schedule of a group of nurses in a medium-sized European city and was successfully used during validation to improve homecare planning decisions. The results, therefore, are not generalisable but its modular structure ensures its applicability to different cases. The algorithm provides a patient-centred visiting plan and improves transport allocation by offering nurses a better route assignment by considering the required variables and each nurse’s daily workload.

Keywords: urban transport sustainable; long-term home care; transport scheduling; decision support; approximate algorithm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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