Scheduling of Home Healthcare Workers Carrying Medical Supplies with Mixed Time Windows
LI Yanfeng
WANG Hairui
Abstract：The study focuses on the scheduling issue of home healthcare workers,incorporating constraints related to mixed time windows and medical supplies into the model.A branch-and-price algorithm is designed for solving the problem,with the branch process and labeling algorithm are improved within the algorithm.In the numerical experiments,the proposed branch-and-price algorithm is compared with the Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search(ALNS)algorithm and CPLEX in terms of performance.The branch-and-price algorithm finds optimal solutions in over 80%of the cases,whereas CPLEX achieves this in less than 20%of the cases.Moreover,in large-scale instances,the branch-and-price algorithm show an improvement of over 15%compared with ALNS algorithm.Sensitivity analysis is conducted on key parameters in the model.Experimental results indicate that different parameters for patient-caregiver matching and penalties for time window violations both impact operational costs;mixed time windows are more efficient than soft and hard time windows,with the total cost under mixed time windows being about 2%lower than that under hard time windows,while also avoiding extreme scenarios;the constraint of carrying medical supplies can affect the total cost by up to 40%,making it a necessary consideration for this constraint in the model.
Keywords：home healthcaresynchronized servicemixed time windowmedical suppliesbranch and price
Publication Date：2024-10-28
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：10( 23-32 )