Linear Integer Programming for the Home Health Care Problem

Home health care is a growing medical service. It includes medical, paramedical and social services delivered to patients at their own homes. The main benefits of home health care are the significant decrease in the hospitalization and the cost reduction in the entire health system. However, this service is not an easy task because it combines the vehicle routing problem and the nurse assignment problem. In this paper we propose a linear integer scheduling model developed to provide staff short term planning in home care. In particular, the model deals with the problem of deciding (a) which patients should be assigned to each nurse and (b) when to execute the service during the planning horizon, in order to satisfy the time windows constraints for each patient.