Abstract:

In this time of health crisis, it is important to make adjustments of resources encountered in many areas dealing with logistical issues by minimizing the costs of transportation and maximizing the satisfaction and preferences of patients in the field of Home Health Care. In this paper, we will deal with the vehicle routing problem with time windows, precedence, and synchronization constraints along with staff lunch break requirements combined with the scheduling and planning matter. Oftenly, patients whom are not requiring anymore staying at hospital are needed to leave their spot to another critical case, but need further treatment than can be done at home. Caregivers are assigned to perform special care to needy patients depending on their demands by taking into consideration temporal constraints such as time windows, preferences of patients, precedence, synchronization and more importantly the issue of caregivers’ lunch breaks which give a realistic aspect to the problem.