Locating Hospital Centers By an Integration of BWM، DANP، VIKOR and COPRAS Methods (Case Study: Region 1, City of Tehran)

Land use planning is the main element of urban planning. Today, the expansion of cities and the increase of urban populations have led city managers to face the challenge of integrated planning and optimal use of land for sustainable development. Finding solutions to the optimal location of urban centers for citizens to achieve prosperity among these issues. In this regard, the application of a spatial information system along with multi-criteria decision making can be a suitable option for policymakers. Given the importance of hospitals as subcategories of health centers and their vital role in community health, the decision to allocate the required service, entail  the use of efficient tools and techniques, as well as the expertise of the experts. In the present study, with the aim of improving decision output related to traditional methods and previous studies, the effective measures of hospital site selection are weighted in two sages: Best-Worst and Dematel-based ANP methods. In the first method, access to the main street and distance from the health centers are categorized as the most and the least criteria while in the second, distance from other hospitals and the slope outlined the most important and least important criteria. Due to the different weighting process of the two methods, their results were combined, and the weighted weights of the criteria were adjusted to 21.8%. Then the corresponding factor maps were prepared and combined with the final weights. Then, from the zoning of the study area, nine suitable construction options were proposed, which were ranked in two steps using the Vikor and Coopers methods. The final rating was derived from the comparison of the output of the two methods. Then, in selecting the sites 6 and 7 as the best selective options, we evaluated the expected improvement in the health status of the region. Based on the results of this research, increasing the number of effective criteria, combining new and powerful methods of decision making and turning decision-making from individual to group and prioritizing needs can be important factors in improving the quality of the results of the analysis.