A Cluster First-Route Second Solution Approach for the Multi-Period Home Healthcare Routing and Scheduling Problem

Abstract

In the home healthcare routing and scheduling problem (HHCRSP), nurses are allocated to a variety of services demanded by clients during a planning horizon. The properties of this problem resemble vehicle routing and nurse scheduling. To propose an efficient solution, the authors consider various issues such as multi-depot, travelling time, time windows, synchronisation, the qualification levels, and other features of nurses and clients. In addition, the continuity of care and work overload should not be ignored in this perspective. First, the authors developed a model in which the continuity of care is redefined by considering connected (synchronous) jobs and the work overload is formulated considering nurse-to-patient staffing ratio. Second, a two-stage solution approach based on a cluster-assign algorithm and variable neighbourhood search (VNS) and variable neighbourhood descent (VND) algorithms are tested on a series of large-scale instances. Computational results present the relations and trade-offs among the aforementioned issues.