IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/orspec/v44y2022i3d10.1007_s00291-022-00670-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mobile healthcare services in rural areas: an application with periodic location routing problem

Author

Listed:
  • Sinem Kınay Savaşer

    (University of Toronto)

  • Bahar Yetis Kara

    (Bilkent University)

Abstract

In this study, we focus on the delivery of mobile healthcare services in rural areas, where doctors visit remote villages which do not have a healthcare facility nearby. The aim is to increase the accessibility of healthcare services for such population centers. We aim to determine the village assignments of the doctors, their monthly visit schedules and base hospitals where they start and end their tours. We model this as a periodic location routing problem and use the policies of Ministry of Health of Turkey as a basis for our mathematical formulation. These policies include the essential components of mobile healthcare services, namely, continuity of care and determining evenly distributed periodic visits. We determine the visit schedules, i.e. routes, of doctors endogenously while satisfying these policies. We also develop a heuristic algorithm based on a cluster first-route second approach and solve larger instances more effectively. The computational experiments support that this solution methodology can effectively find optimal or near-optimal solutions and improve the computational times significantly.

Suggested Citation

  • Sinem Kınay Savaşer & Bahar Yetis Kara, 2022. "Mobile healthcare services in rural areas: an application with periodic location routing problem," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 44(3), pages 875-910, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:orspec:v:44:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00291-022-00670-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s00291-022-00670-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00291-022-00670-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00291-022-00670-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mustafa Demirbilek & Juergen Branke & Arne Strauss, 2019. "Dynamically accepting and scheduling patients for home healthcare," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 140-155, March.
    2. Sachidanand V. Begur & David M. Miller & Jerry R. Weaver, 1997. "An Integrated Spatial DSS for Scheduling and Routing Home-Health-Care Nurses," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 35-48, August.
    3. Hemmelmayr, Vera C. & Doerner, Karl F. & Hartl, Richard F., 2009. "A variable neighborhood search heuristic for periodic routing problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 195(3), pages 791-802, June.
    4. Liu, Ran & Xie, Xiaolan & Garaix, Thierry, 2014. "Hybridization of tabu search with feasible and infeasible local searches for periodic home health care logistics," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 17-32.
    5. Jörg Steeg & Michael Schröder, 2008. "A Hybrid Approach to Solve the Periodic Home Health Care Problem," Operations Research Proceedings, in: Jörg Kalcsics & Stefan Nickel (ed.), Operations Research Proceedings 2007, pages 297-302, Springer.
    6. Nickel, Stefan & Schröder, Michael & Steeg, Jörg, 2012. "Mid-term and short-term planning support for home health care services," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 219(3), pages 574-587.
    7. Braekers, Kris & Hartl, Richard F. & Parragh, Sophie N. & Tricoire, Fabien, 2016. "A bi-objective home care scheduling problem: Analyzing the trade-off between costs and client inconvenience," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 428-443.
    8. Francis, Peter & Smilowitz, Karen, 2006. "Modeling techniques for periodic vehicle routing problems," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 872-884, December.
    9. Cappanera, Paola & Scutellà, Maria Grazia & Nervi, Federico & Galli, Laura, 2018. "Demand uncertainty in robust Home Care optimization," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 95-110.
    10. Rodríguez-Martín, Inmaculada & Salazar-González, Juan-José & Yaman, Hande, 2019. "The periodic vehicle routing problem with driver consistency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(2), pages 575-584.
    11. Hemmelmayr, Vera C., 2015. "Sequential and parallel large neighborhood search algorithms for the periodic location routing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(1), pages 52-60.
    12. Gulczynski, Damon & Golden, Bruce & Wasil, Edward, 2011. "The period vehicle routing problem: New heuristics and real-world variants," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 648-668, September.
    13. Mourgaya, M. & Vanderbeck, F., 2007. "Column generation based heuristic for tactical planning in multi-period vehicle routing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 183(3), pages 1028-1041, December.
    14. Tan, C.C.R. & Beasley, J.E., 1984. "A heuristic algorithm for the period vehicle routing problem," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 497-504.
    15. Grenouilleau, Florian & Legrain, Antoine & Lahrichi, Nadia & Rousseau, Louis-Martin, 2019. "A set partitioning heuristic for the home health care routing and scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(1), pages 295-303.
    16. Prodhon, Caroline, 2011. "A hybrid evolutionary algorithm for the periodic location-routing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 210(2), pages 204-212, April.
    17. Y-J An & Y-D Kim & B J Jeong & S-D Kim, 2012. "Scheduling healthcare services in a home healthcare system," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 63(11), pages 1589-1599, November.
    18. Nair, D.J. & Grzybowska, H. & Fu, Y. & Dixit, V.V., 2018. "Scheduling and routing models for food rescue and delivery operations," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 18-32.
    19. Vera Hemmelmayr & Karen Smilowitz & Luis de la Torre, 2017. "A periodic location routing problem for collaborative recycling," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(4), pages 414-428, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Osman Atilla Yazır & Çağrı Koç & Eda Yücel, 2023. "The multi-period home healthcare routing and scheduling problem with electric vehicles," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 45(3), pages 853-901, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pahlevani, Delaram & Abbasi, Babak & Hearne, John W. & Eberhard, Andrew, 2022. "A cluster-based algorithm for home health care planning: A case study in Australia," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    2. Rodríguez-Martín, Inmaculada & Yaman, Hande, 2022. "Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem with Driver Consistency and service time optimization," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 468-484.
    3. Jalel Euchi & Malek Masmoudi & Patrick Siarry, 2022. "Home health care routing and scheduling problems: a literature review," 4OR, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 351-389, September.
    4. Amir M. Fathollahi-Fard & Abbas Ahmadi & Behrooz Karimi, 2021. "Multi-Objective Optimization of Home Healthcare with Working-Time Balancing and Care Continuity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-33, November.
    5. Liu, Ran & Xie, Xiaolan & Garaix, Thierry, 2014. "Hybridization of tabu search with feasible and infeasible local searches for periodic home health care logistics," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 17-32.
    6. Gomes, Maria Isabel & Ramos, Tânia Rodrigues Pereira, 2019. "Modelling and (re-)planning periodic home social care services with loyalty and non-loyalty features," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(1), pages 284-299.
    7. Song, Ruidian & Zhao, Lei & Van Woensel, Tom & Fransoo, Jan C., 2019. "Coordinated delivery in urban retail," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 122-148.
    8. Biao Yuan & Zhibin Jiang, 2017. "Disruption Management for the Real-Time Home Caregiver Scheduling and Routing Problem," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, November.
    9. Mohamed Cissé & Semih Yalçindag & Yannick Kergosien & Evren Sahin & Christophe Lenté & Andrea Matta, 2017. "OR problems related to Home Health Care: A review of relevant routing and scheduling problems," Post-Print hal-01736714, HAL.
    10. Rodríguez-Martín, Inmaculada & Salazar-González, Juan-José & Yaman, Hande, 2019. "The periodic vehicle routing problem with driver consistency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(2), pages 575-584.
    11. Zheng, Chenyang & Wang, Shuming & Li, Ningxin & Wu, Yuanhao, 2021. "Stochastic joint homecare service and capacity planning with nested decomposition approaches," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(1), pages 203-222.
    12. Naderi, Bahman & Begen, Mehmet A. & Zaric, Gregory S. & Roshanaei, Vahid, 2023. "A novel and efficient exact technique for integrated staffing, assignment, routing, and scheduling of home care services under uncertainty," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    13. Lin, Meiyan & Ma, Lijun & Ying, Chengshuo, 2021. "Matching daily home health-care demands with supply in service-sharing platforms," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    14. Chen, Yujie & Cowling, Peter & Polack, Fiona & Remde, Stephen & Mourdjis, Philip, 2017. "Dynamic optimisation of preventative and corrective maintenance schedules for a large scale urban drainage system," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(2), pages 494-510.
    15. Roberto Baldacci & Enrico Bartolini & Aristide Mingozzi & Andrea Valletta, 2011. "An Exact Algorithm for the Period Routing Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 228-241, February.
    16. Semih Yalçındağ & Andrea Matta & Evren Şahin & J. George Shanthikumar, 2016. "The patient assignment problem in home health care: using a data-driven method to estimate the travel times of care givers," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 304-335, June.
    17. Paraskevopoulos, Dimitris C. & Laporte, Gilbert & Repoussis, Panagiotis P. & Tarantilis, Christos D., 2017. "Resource constrained routing and scheduling: Review and research prospects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(3), pages 737-754.
    18. Paola Cappanera & Maria Grazia Scutellà, 2022. "Addressing consistency and demand uncertainty in the Home Care planning problem," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 1-39, March.
    19. Gläser, Sina & Stücken, Mareike, 2021. "Introduction of an underground waste container system–model and solution approaches," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(2), pages 675-689.
    20. Shi, Yong & Boudouh, Toufik & Grunder, Olivier, 2019. "A robust optimization for a home health care routing and scheduling problem with consideration of uncertain travel and service times," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 52-95.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:orspec:v:44:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00291-022-00670-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.