Balancing continuity of care and home care schedule costs using blueprint routes
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: High quality care is typically associated with continuity of care. In addition, the increasing pressure on home care organizations calls for a cost-effective solution. The aim of this paper is to attain cost-efficient daily schedules while ensuring continuity of care over a longer time horizon as well. To address this challenge, we propose a novel method based on blueprint routes. This method generates daily schedules by constructing optimized shifts and routes with regard to travel time, (time window) waiting time, and shift costs based on hourly wages. To ensure continuity of care, the daily scheduling decisions are strategically guided using the concept named blueprint routes. The blueprint routes are pre-optimized (partial) routes that help to align the daily schedules to achieve continuity of care in the subsequent nurse-to-shift assignment. Model-based evolutionary algorithms are employed to overcome the NP-hardness of the routing problem and nurse-to-shift assignment. Real-life-based numerical experiments demonstrate that continuity of care does not have to compromise home care schedule costs significantly.
Language: English
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,080
OpenAlex ID: W4402124051