A contribution to operations management-related issues and models for home care structures

Health services provided at home are becoming more important in most European countries. A better understanding of the specificities of home care (HC) operations and their management is therefore necessary. The importance of operations management for HC is obvious; such systems are faced with a growing demand for care and higher expectations for improved service delivery with more and more constraints on available budget and resources. Based on interviews of HC practices in France and Italy as well as an international review of the literature related to HC operations, this paper aims at contributing to a better characterisation of HC operations and the associated decision-making models. The main part of the presentation is made at a generic level and the paper includes also a more specific part on the chemotherapy at home process. We also provide a discussion on the most relevant research topics in the field of HC operations management.