Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa.
Despite much literature on operations research applied to various healthcare problems, impactful implementation in public healthcare is limited, which often results in allocative inefficiency. This article uses a mobile clinic routing and scheduling problem in the Witzenberg region of South Africa a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310086 |
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| author | Hannah J Callaghan Linke Potgieter Nadia Le Roux |
| author_facet | Hannah J Callaghan Linke Potgieter Nadia Le Roux |
| author_sort | Hannah J Callaghan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite much literature on operations research applied to various healthcare problems, impactful implementation in public healthcare is limited, which often results in allocative inefficiency. This article uses a mobile clinic routing and scheduling problem in the Witzenberg region of South Africa as a case study to demonstrate the improvement of implementation success through cross-disciplinary collaboration, and also to propose a new three-stage approach for modelling a mobile clinic problem that incorporates continuity of care, fairness, and minimisation of distance travelled. Mobile clinics are used in many countries to improve access to healthcare for rural communities. Decision makers must assign farms or villages to mobile clinics, and determine their monthly visit schedules. To improve implementation success, we follow a collaborative three-phased mixed-methods approach with healthcare professionals to improve workload balance, fairness, and transportation cost. During phase 1, qualitative and quantitative data are gathered through qualitative research methods. In phase 2, fairly distributed optimal routes and schedules are designed using a three-stage model that incorporates a multi-vehicle routing problem to determine daily routes, a knapsack problem to establish a fair allocation of these daily routes between different clinics, and another variation on the vehicle routing problem to determine the monthly visit schedule that minimises the distance between the last farm visited on each consecutive day in the case of having to return to a farm the next day. Different input parameter estimations result in different routes and schedules. In phase 3, AHP is performed with main decision makers to determine their preferred solution. Final routes and schedules are designed based on model results, AHP results, and contextual input from decision makers. In our case study, an improved workload balance, a 23% reduction in total distance travelled, and buy-in to implement the changes, were obtained. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-4d66f3ffa47f4c5384e9c836fbe02de0 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-4d66f3ffa47f4c5384e9c836fbe02de02025-01-17T05:31:40ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01201e031008610.1371/journal.pone.0310086Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa.Hannah J CallaghanLinke PotgieterNadia Le RouxDespite much literature on operations research applied to various healthcare problems, impactful implementation in public healthcare is limited, which often results in allocative inefficiency. This article uses a mobile clinic routing and scheduling problem in the Witzenberg region of South Africa as a case study to demonstrate the improvement of implementation success through cross-disciplinary collaboration, and also to propose a new three-stage approach for modelling a mobile clinic problem that incorporates continuity of care, fairness, and minimisation of distance travelled. Mobile clinics are used in many countries to improve access to healthcare for rural communities. Decision makers must assign farms or villages to mobile clinics, and determine their monthly visit schedules. To improve implementation success, we follow a collaborative three-phased mixed-methods approach with healthcare professionals to improve workload balance, fairness, and transportation cost. During phase 1, qualitative and quantitative data are gathered through qualitative research methods. In phase 2, fairly distributed optimal routes and schedules are designed using a three-stage model that incorporates a multi-vehicle routing problem to determine daily routes, a knapsack problem to establish a fair allocation of these daily routes between different clinics, and another variation on the vehicle routing problem to determine the monthly visit schedule that minimises the distance between the last farm visited on each consecutive day in the case of having to return to a farm the next day. Different input parameter estimations result in different routes and schedules. In phase 3, AHP is performed with main decision makers to determine their preferred solution. Final routes and schedules are designed based on model results, AHP results, and contextual input from decision makers. In our case study, an improved workload balance, a 23% reduction in total distance travelled, and buy-in to implement the changes, were obtained.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310086 |
| spellingShingle | Hannah J Callaghan Linke Potgieter Nadia Le Roux Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa. PLoS ONE |
| title | Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa. |
| title_full | Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa. |
| title_fullStr | Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa. |
| title_short | Mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the Witzenberg region of South Africa. |
| title_sort | mobile clinics routing and scheduling in the witzenberg region of south africa |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310086 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT hannahjcallaghan mobileclinicsroutingandschedulinginthewitzenbergregionofsouthafrica AT linkepotgieter mobileclinicsroutingandschedulinginthewitzenbergregionofsouthafrica AT nadialeroux mobileclinicsroutingandschedulinginthewitzenbergregionofsouthafrica |