Long-Term Care Sustainable Networks in ADRION Region

David Bogataj, Marija Bogataj () and Samo Drobne
Additional contact information
David Bogataj: Department of Systems Engineering and Economics, Alma Mater Europaea—ECM, Slovenska cesta 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia
Marija Bogataj: Institute INRISK, Kidriceva 1, 8210 Trebnje, Slovenia
Samo Drobne: Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Jamova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 18, 1-23

Abstract: The Long-Term Care (LTC) industry mainly comprises networks managed by providers of services other than informal caregivers and government agencies. Among the providers are the local providers of community-based services. The segment still consists of mostly small businesses. As such, it needs many improvements in logistics, information and communication technology (ICT) support, and educational programs, specifically in the ADRION region, where the rural areas require a high percentage of travel time in a working day for service providers. The demand for LTC services must be known early enough for providers to adapt to the growth of these demands, and they also need methods to support decisions on how to optimize the number of care workers to be able to plan the necessary human resources in the long term. The results are based on the authors’ previous studies of sustainable hierarchical spatial systems. The paper presents the achievements of these research activities and policies, governance and financing in the hierarchically organized services and networks of educational programs for human resources and ICT innovations in LTC, which are currently in short supply. Projections of capacities from facilities are necessary. Logistic networks to human resources are based on geo-gerontological projections, such as the multistate transition model, which is a new achievement in this area, and the adequate norms and standards of these services. The optimal number of human resources is based on the combination of the Patterson-Albracht algorithm and Multiple Travelling Salesman Problem (mTSP), as a new Home Health Care Routing and Scheduling Problem (HHCRSP), which helps in ensuring the inclusion of travel time in the concept of norms and standards, to achieve a work balance and care schedule according to the wishes of clients. The proposed approach might help professionals adapt in advance to the coming changes caused by the growing number of seniors and rapid changes in technology, and might also help in considerations as to whether the priorities of clients should be included in the basic national insurance programs or additionally charged as a higher standard of home care services. The aim is to make care and supply networks as sustainable as possible.

Keywords: long-term care; spatial dispersion; sustainable networks; logistics; social value; human resources; multiple transitions; forecasting; rural areas; HHCRSP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11154/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11154/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:18:p:11154-:d:908122

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().