Location Selection and Resource Allocation for Field Hospitals after a Possible Earthquake in Amol City, Iran

Background and objective Transferring injured people to medical centers is one of the important challenges of providing relief in natural and man-made disasters. Often, due to the damage caused by the disaster, it is not possible to transfer the injured to safe medical centers in the short term. Establishing field hospitals in suitable places is one of the common solutions in these situations. This study aims address the problem of location selection for field hospitals using mathematical modeling and asses how to allocate resources, including medical staff and needed medications by the temporary hospitals. Method This study presents an integer programming model for the location selection problem. To evaluate the proposed model, the real data from Amol City was collected and used as inputs. The optimal solution was determined using GAMS optimization software. Results The results showed the best places for establishing field hospitals, how much capacity (beds) each field hospital needed, and how many medical staff and relief vehicles are needed for relief operations. Also, the sensitivity analysis showed that what will change the problem’s solution and how the suitable places for establishing field hospitals will change in case of any damage incurred  to the hospitals or their inactivity in Amol City due to the accident.  Conclusion The decisions made by authorities and decision-makers after natural disasters may not be appropriate and optimal for they must act very quickly to manage the crisis in the affected areas.. Therfore, The results of this study can help authorities in Amol city to make the best decisions regarding where to establish field hospitals and how to use the limited available resources during disasters. The main innovation of the presented model also is the location of field hospitals along with considering the active hospitals around the affected areas so that the injured can be transferred to the active hospitals in addition to the constructed field hospitals. In this model, a constraint has been applied to complete the service time, so that the rescue vehicles have a limited time to transport the injured to the rescue centers.