Integration of Caregivers Allocation an‎d Routing of Home Healthcare Centers Considering Patient Satisfaction

1/1/1900 12:00:00 AM

This study develops a novel model for optimizing routing an‎d scheduling in home healthcare services, aiming to reduce overall costs an‎d enhance patient satisfaction. The proposed model dynamically manages real-time updat‎es, including new patient requests an‎d potential cancellations. Treatment duration is modeled as a type-2 pentagonal fuzzy variable to account for uncertainty an‎d variability in treatment times. Additionally, the epsilon-constraint method is employed to transform the bi-objective problem into a single-objective optimization model. The proposed model effectively allocates caregivers to patients an‎d determines optimal routes. It also han‎dles dynamic updat‎es during service delivery, such as new patient additions, cancellations, an‎d changes in treatment schedules. Statistical analysis demonstrates the superiority of the proposed model in cost reduction compared to alternative scenarios. A sensitivity analysis conducted on key parameters, including treatment duration, time window length, updat‎e notification time, an‎d labor idle costs, reveals that reducing treatment duration an‎d increasing time window lengths contribute to cost reduction. However, delays in updat‎e notifications lead to increased costs an‎d reduced adaptability. The findings recommend the use of advanced routing technologies to improve the accuracy of real-time updat‎es, training programs for caregivers to enhance treatment efficiency an‎d patient satisfaction, an‎d strengthening communication systems between patients an‎d service providers to minimize updat‎e delays.

مراقبت در منزل , مسيريابي و زمانبندي , درمانگران , زمان درمان فازي

Home healthcare , Routing an‎d scheduling , Caregivers , Fuzzy treatment time

Sara Talaei

Mir Saman Pishvaee