A decomposition approach for the home health care problem with time windows

Optimization tools are necessary to efficiently plan service delivery for patients at home in the context of Home Health Care services. In the scientific literature, Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (PVRPTW) is proposed to address the assignment, scheduling and routing processes with time windows. However, PVRPTW is computationally difficult and not viable for large-size problems. Thus, a practical approach is proposed to decompose the problem. Time windows are considered at the assignment level using a probabilistic model without the need of solving the routing problem. Mixed integer mathematical programming models are proposed and solved by CPLEX solver. Numerical experiments are executed to validate the performance of the proposed models with respect to the PVRPTW.