Defining Service Elements in Home Care

We present a service element conceptualization for home care - a growing, but largely under managed sector. In home care, a visit is the basic service element, which consists of several service tasks performed during the visit. These tasks determine the essential characteristics of the visit regarding resource planning, resource optimization and scheduling. We propose a typology to define the various tasks performed during the home care visits according to three attributes, purpose, time criticality and type of activities. Each attribute also has two states. This classification produced eight different visit types. The typology was tested in a field study by observing 67 visits to 18 customers in a mid-size European municipality. As the time-critical tasks in the current mode of operation are dominant, capacity management cannot focus on leveling but needs to use a chase capacity approach. As most visits require personal service, there were insignificant possibilities to efficiency improvement through ICT -- mediated services.