A Bayesian approach for modeling patient's demand and hidden health status: an application to Home Health Care

Home Care (HC) service consists of providing care to patients at their own home, without the necessity of bringing them to hospitals or nursing homes. This service allows a high quality of life for the assisted patients and, at the same time, a cost reduction for the health care system. The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology for estimating and predicting the demand for care of HC patients in terms of number of visits and, at the same time describing the natural history of care profiles. We will model patients' holding times (i.e., the number of time slots the patient care profile does not change) as well as nurse visits to the patients.