Multi-period scheduling problem of combination of home health care and outpatient services: based on Chinese family doctor contract services

Inspired by the service mode of family doctor contract service in China, this paper presents a multi-period problem of the combination of home health care and outpatient service over a planning horizon of multiple days. In the planning horizon, patients receive services with fixed frequencies and have different preferences for different dates. Taking the patients’ service date regulations and doctors’ working regulations into account, we propose a mixed-integer nonlinear and convex programming model, which aims to minimize the total operating costs and maximize the patients’ preference satisfaction. A hybrid tabu search algorithm with an embedded shake procedure is designed to solve the problem. Numerical experiment results imply that the hybrid tabu search algorithm performs well when compared with the exact method on small instances, and it can also provide higher quality solutions when compared with variable neighborhood search method. We also analyze problem properties and parameter sensitivities through some small instances.