Title: Analysis of maximal covering location-allocation model for congested healthcare systems in user choice environment

Authors: Mahsa Pouraliakbari; Mohammad Mohammadi; Abolfazl Mirzazadeh

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kharazmi University, P.O. Box: 15719-14911, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kharazmi University, P.O. Box: 15719-14911, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kharazmi University, P.O. Box: 15719-14911, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: This paper attempts to shed light onto the formulation and the solution of a probabilistic maximal covering location model for determining the optimal location of facilities in congested healthcare systems with referral hierarchical structure. We will address healthcare systems operating in a competitive setting and when the customers choose the facilities they patronise, by the travel time to the hospitals and service costs at each hospital. The hospitals have several low-level sections for offering low level services (such as primary services) and several high-level sections for offering high level services (such as professional services) and the patients will refer to different sections of hospitals according to their requirements and their physical conditions. Our objective is to minimise the total amount of demand that is lost in the system. To solve the model, two meta-heuristic algorithms, including population-based simulated annealing (PBSA) and ant colony optimisation (ACO) have been executed and analysed using statistical test and TOPSIS method to determine which algorithm works better.

Keywords: probabilistic maximal covering location problem; congested system; healthcare system; user choice environment; hierarchical structure; queuing theory; competitive environment; population-based simulated annealing; PBSA; ant colony optimisation; ACO.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2018.089139

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2018 Vol.28 No.2, pp.240 - 274

Received: 16 Nov 2015
Accepted: 24 Feb 2016

Published online: 08 Jan 2018 *

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