A mathematical model for cross-trained home care caregiver assignment problem

The home care service is defined as visiting and nursing medical and nonmedical services to customers at their homes. Home carecaregiver assignment problem is defined as deciding which caregiver to assign to each customers. In this study, a mathematicalprogramming model is proposed to address caregiver assignment problem considering cross-training of caregivers for home careservices. The first objective of the model attempts to minimize costs associated with workload balancing and cross-training whilethe second objective function maximizes the satisfaction level of caregiver. Some constraints such as caregiver absenteeism,maximum allowable consecutive shifts and multi-functionality level are considered. The required data are collected from a realworld HC provider. Based on the results obtained, the caregivers’ preferences are satisfied and the caregivers’ workload isbalanced.