Young Researcher and Innovator Conference Grant

Drone-Assisted Home Healthcare Planning Under Uncertainty

Arghavan Sharafi, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Mahdi Bashiri, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Thomas Statheros, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Dhananjay Thiruvady, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia
Daniel Lai, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia

The 24th Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS 2026)
Vienna, Austria
12-17 July 2026

Grantee: Arghavan Sharafi, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Type of publication: Abstract
Type of presentation: Oral

Start date: 2026-07-12
End date: 2026-07-17
Awarded: 2026-05-18

Abstract

Home healthcare systems often require caregivers to travel to obtain medical supplies identified during patient visits, increasing non-care activities. We propose a drone-assisted home healthcare system where drones deliver supplies from the healthcare centre to nearby drone stations for caregiver pickup. A two-stage stochastic mixed-integer programming model jointly optimises caregiver routing, drone station location, and drone dispatching under uncertain demand, while capturing caregiver–drone synchronisation. Results show that drone integration can reduce caregiver non-care time.