IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/hcarem/v27y2024i1d10.1007_s10729-022-09612-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scheduling mobile dental clinics: A heuristic approach considering fairness among school districts

Author

Listed:
  • Ignacio A. Sepúlveda

    (NC State University)

  • Maichel M. Aguayo

    (Universidad San Sebastián)

  • Rodrigo De la Fuente

    (Universidad de Concepción)

  • Guillermo Latorre-Núñez

    (Universidad del Bío-Bío)

  • Carlos Obreque

    (Universidad del Bío-Bío)

  • Camila Vásquez Orrego

    (Servicio de Salud Ñuble)

Abstract

Mobile dental clinics (MDCs) are suitable solutions for servicing people living in rural and urban areas that require dental healthcare. MDCs can provide dental care to the most vulnerable high-school students. However, scheduling MDCs to visit patients is critical to developing efficient dental programs. Here, we study a mobile dental clinic scheduling problem that arises from the real-life logistics management challenge faced by a school-based mobile dental care program in Southern Chile. This problem involves scheduling MDCs to treat high-school students at public schools while considering a fairness constraint among districts. Schools are circumscribed into districts, and by program regulations, at least 50% of the students in each district must receive dental care during the first semester. Fairness prevents some districts from waiting more time to receive dental care than others. We model the problem as a parallel machine scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup costs and batch due dates and propose a mathematical model and a genetic algorithm-based solution to solve the problem. Our computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approaches in obtaining near-optimal solutions. Finally, dental program managers can use the methodologies presented in this work to schedule mobile dental clinics and improve their operations.

Suggested Citation

  • Ignacio A. Sepúlveda & Maichel M. Aguayo & Rodrigo De la Fuente & Guillermo Latorre-Núñez & Carlos Obreque & Camila Vásquez Orrego, 2024. "Scheduling mobile dental clinics: A heuristic approach considering fairness among school districts," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 46-71, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:hcarem:v:27:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10729-022-09612-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10729-022-09612-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10729-022-09612-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10729-022-09612-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allahverdi, Ali, 2015. "The third comprehensive survey on scheduling problems with setup times/costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(2), pages 345-378.
    2. Isabel Méndez-Fernández & Silvia Lorenzo-Freire & Ignacio García-Jurado & Julián Costa & Luisa Carpente, 2020. "A heuristic approach to the task planning problem in a home care business," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 556-570, December.
    3. Ling-Huey Su & Ping-Shun Chen & Szu-Yin Chen, 2013. "Scheduling on parallel machines to minimise maximum lateness for the customer order problem," International Journal of Systems Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(5), pages 926-936.
    4. Thibaut Vidal & Teodor Gabriel Crainic & Michel Gendreau & Nadia Lahrichi & Walter Rei, 2012. "A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for Multidepot and Periodic Vehicle Routing Problems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 611-624, June.
    5. Liu, Ran & Xie, Xiaolan & Garaix, Thierry, 2014. "Hybridization of tabu search with feasible and infeasible local searches for periodic home health care logistics," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 17-32.
    6. Daganzo, Carlos F., 1989. "The crane scheduling problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 159-175, June.
    7. Ye, Qing Chuan & Zhang, Yingqian & Dekker, Rommert, 2017. "Fair task allocation in transportation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-16.
    8. Dimitris Bertsimas & Vivek F. Farias & Nikolaos Trichakis, 2012. "On the Efficiency-Fairness Trade-off," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(12), pages 2234-2250, December.
    9. Peterkofsky, Roy I. & Daganzo, Carlos F., 1990. "A branch and bound solution method for the crane scheduling problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 159-172, June.
    10. Leah Epstein & Ido Yatsiv, 2017. "Preemptive scheduling on uniformly related machines: minimizing the sum of the largest pair of job completion times," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 115-127, April.
    11. Cattaruzza, Diego & Absi, Nabil & Feillet, Dominique & Vidal, Thibaut, 2014. "A memetic algorithm for the Multi Trip Vehicle Routing Problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 236(3), pages 833-848.
    12. Dimitris Bertsimas & Shubham Gupta, 2016. "Fairness and Collaboration in Network Air Traffic Flow Management: An Optimization Approach," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 57-76, February.
    13. Vallada, Eva & Ruiz, Rubén, 2011. "A genetic algorithm for the unrelated parallel machine scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 211(3), pages 612-622, June.
    14. Paolo Toth & Daniele Vigo, 2003. "The Granular Tabu Search and Its Application to the Vehicle-Routing Problem," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 333-346, November.
    15. Marouene Chaieb & Jaber Jemai & Khaled Mellouli, 2020. "A decomposition - construction approach for solving the home health care scheduling problem," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 264-286, June.
    16. Dorota Mankowska & Frank Meisel & Christian Bierwirth, 2014. "The home health care routing and scheduling problem with interdependent services," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 15-30, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nabil Absi & Diego Cattaruzza & Dominique Feillet & Sylvain Housseman, 2017. "A relax-and-repair heuristic for the Swap-Body Vehicle Routing Problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 253(2), pages 957-978, June.
    2. Zhang, Zhenzhen & Liu, Mengyang & Lim, Andrew, 2015. "A memetic algorithm for the patient transportation problem," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 60-71.
    3. Gomes, Maria Isabel & Ramos, Tânia Rodrigues Pereira, 2019. "Modelling and (re-)planning periodic home social care services with loyalty and non-loyalty features," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(1), pages 284-299.
    4. Pahlevani, Delaram & Abbasi, Babak & Hearne, John W. & Eberhard, Andrew, 2022. "A cluster-based algorithm for home health care planning: A case study in Australia," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    5. Briskorn, Dirk & Drexl, Andreas & Hartmann, Sönke, 2005. "Inventory based dispatching of automated guided vehicles on container terminals," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 596, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    6. Raymond K. Cheung & Chung-Lun Li & Wuqin Lin, 2002. "Interblock Crane Deployment in Container Terminals," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(1), pages 79-93, February.
    7. Andrew Lim & Brian Rodrigues & Fei Xiao & Yi Zhu, 2004. "Crane scheduling with spatial constraints," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 386-406, April.
    8. Kim, Kap Hwan & Moon, Kyung Chan, 2003. "Berth scheduling by simulated annealing," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 541-560, July.
    9. Semih Yalçındağ & Andrea Matta & Evren Şahin & J. George Shanthikumar, 2016. "The patient assignment problem in home health care: using a data-driven method to estimate the travel times of care givers," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 304-335, June.
    10. J Blazewicz & T C E Cheng & M Machowiak & C Oguz, 2011. "Berth and quay crane allocation: a moldable task scheduling model," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(7), pages 1189-1197, July.
    11. Jin Xu & Natarajan Gautam, 2020. "On competitive analysis for polling systems," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(6), pages 404-419, September.
    12. Henry Lau & Ying Zhao, 2008. "Integrated scheduling of handling equipment at automated container terminals," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 373-394, March.
    13. Y Zhu & A Lim, 2006. "Crane scheduling with non-crossing constraint," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(12), pages 1464-1471, December.
    14. Wu, Lingxiao & Ma, Weimin, 2017. "Quay crane scheduling with draft and trim constraints," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 38-68.
    15. Zhang, Chuqian & Wan, Yat-wah & Liu, Jiyin & Linn, Richard J., 2002. "Dynamic crane deployment in container storage yards," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 537-555, July.
    16. Frank Meisel & Christian Bierwirth, 2013. "A Framework for Integrated Berth Allocation and Crane Operations Planning in Seaport Container Terminals," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(2), pages 131-147, May.
    17. Alexandre Jacquillat & Vikrant Vaze, 2018. "Interairline Equity in Airport Scheduling Interventions," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(4), pages 941-964, August.
    18. Yepes-Borrero, Juan C. & Perea, Federico & Ruiz, Rubén & Villa, Fulgencia, 2021. "Bi-objective parallel machine scheduling with additional resources during setups," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(2), pages 443-455.
    19. Biao Yuan & Zhibin Jiang, 2017. "Disruption Management for the Real-Time Home Caregiver Scheduling and Routing Problem," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, November.
    20. Evrim Ursavas, 2017. "Crane allocation with stability considerations," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 19(2), pages 379-401, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:hcarem:v:27:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10729-022-09612-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.