Route optimization for home healthcare vehicles

Home health care (HHC) refers to a range of services provided at home after illness or injury, offering the benefits of reduced costs and increased convenience. However, HHC involves moving medical staff to the patient's home, thus generating new challenges to overcome such as vehicle routing problem (VRP). Heuristic methods and exact methods have been proposed for solving VRP problems. In recent years, smart healthcare 4.0 solutions and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) based on internet of things (IoT) technologies have been developed to address emerging challenges while improving service quality and reducing time and costs. The introduction of intelligent system to health care can reduce the labor intensity of medical staff, save costs and enhance the medical experience of patients. In this context, this paper gives a review of some approaches to solve VRPs. A combined approach using exact method, home healthcare, and ITS is developed to determine a reliable route optimization solution for home healthcare vehicles. The solution was optimized considering traffic congestion levels during travel. The proposed solution involves finding the optimal route, then in real time allows to bypass the traffic blockages.