Conference Agenda

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to address global challenges that affect all nations. While the SDGs are commonly perceived as primarily for developing countries, they set ambitious goals that are relevant to all nations. Developed countries are also grappling, to varying degrees, with social issues such as poverty and isolation. Delivering services in this context presents unique challenges, as the service recipients are people in vulnerable conditions. Optimizing logistics services through OR models can significantly improve decision-making in what we have been calling Social Care Logistics.

Social Care Logistics refers to all logistical activities that facilitate service delivery to individuals who require social support in their everyday lives. The talk focuses on two crucial challenges encountered by developed nations: an aging population and food insecurity. In the context of an aging population we will focus on the home social care problem, where we explore how traditional routing and scheduling models can be adapted to efficiently plan caregiver routes while taking into account the unique nuances that differentiate this context from the conventional vehicle routing problem. Concerning food insecurity, we will analyze the differences between traditional supply chains and those of food banks, highlighting the unique logistical challenges involved in distributing food to vulnerable populations.

Germany has a well-equipped healthcare system that spends the highest percentage of its GDP on healthcare in Europe and has the second highest number of hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants at 7.8, well above the EU average of 4.8. At the same time, the country has a lower avoidable mortality rate and a life expectancy comparable to the EU average, according to reports by the OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2023). These statistics suggest a solid infrastructure, but also highlight areas where healthcare outcomes can be improved. This study examines the effects of the closure of Vohenstrauß Hospital in July 2020, with a total of 40 hospital beds, on the flow of patients to Weiden Hospital, approximately 14.5 km away, with a total of 649 hospital beds. By analyzing geographical data on the origin of patients and hospital visits over the last thirty years, we found that the closure of Vohenstrauß hospital had only a minimal impact on the flow of patients to Weiden. Our results suggest that the regional healthcare network has adapted effectively, with patients likely to have moved to outpatient providers such as general practitioners. Despite the closure, patient volumes remained the same before and after. This suggests that the quality of healthcare is more important to outcomes than the number of beds or hospitals.