Patient Transport and Mobile Health Workforce: Framework and Research Perspectives

The issue of personnel planning is still a topic that continues to attract the interest of researchers in various fields of application. This issue is at the core of health decision- makers’ concerns regarding the deficit in human resources. The shortfall in health personnel being one of the obstacles to achieving a Universal Health Coverage, it is a priority to be addressed by health managers and policy makers as part of the plans of the more global Human Resources for Health strategy. To help better manage such a strategy, our analysis focuses on exploring the flow of people in hospital logistics and reviewing the contribution of operational research on patient transport and mobile health workers, particularly approaches using Dial A Ride system. In this study, we provide a comprehensive description of the problem of patient transport and mobile health care personnel in relation to any health care service, focusing on the main contributions of operational research to current optimization problems in this area.