Capacity planning model in a home care environment

The Dutch health care system currently deals with the increase in elderly and decrease in the workforce, which affects organisations in particular health care organisations, amongst which is Sensire. Sensire is a home care organisation and seeking a model to determine future care need and the corresponding number of home care providers. This research develops a predictive strategic capacity planning model to provide insight into the number of home care providers Sensire needs at an instant in time for the recovery clients coming from the Slingeland hospital. The problem divides into three sub-problems. A time series analysis forecasts the number of recovery care clients flowing from the Slingeland hospital into the home care environment of Sensire. The forecast functions as an input for an adjusted version of the convolution model of van Berkel et al. (2010) that models the care need corresponding to this inflow over the timeline. The care need then translates into FTEs and home care providers, including various experimental settings. Dependent on experimental settings of interest, the results differ over the projected timeline and function as a strategic policy guide that supports the decision-making of Sensire.