Impact of quality of service in the direct cost of integrated home care services

ABSTRACT

The health and social care sectors grapple with challenges amid population growth and escalating service costs, necessitating enhanced management efficiency. This study centers on Quality of Service (QoS) in integrated home health and social care, assessing its impact on costs. Delving into financial considerations and user perspectives, we propose QoS measures based on consultations with stakeholders. To address the scheduling and routing problems associated with caregiver planning, we introduce a mixed integer linear programming model. We conduct a study and computational experiments to gain valuable insights into the relationship between QoS measures and the overall cost of the service. Findings empower managers to navigate the trade-off between QoS and expenses, offering valuable guidance for decision-making. Ultimately, this work contributes to the development of new strategies and approaches for more efficient and effective management of health and social care in the face of current challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• Home care services
• quality of service
• service costs
• combinatorial optimisation

Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Government of Spain (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades(MCIN), Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI), Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), Unión Europea “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR) under codes RTI2018-095197-B-I00, RYC2021-032954-I, and “la Caixa” Banking Foundation under the project code LCF/PR/SR19/52540014.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [RYC2021-032954-I].