Exact Modeling and Solution of the Healthcare Facility Location-Allocation and Vehicle Routing Problem for Medication Delivery through Rural Primary Care Units
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Abstract
This study aims to analyze the optimal locations of Subdistrict Health Promoting Hospitals (SHPHs) for participating in the “Taking Medicine Nearby House” project by systematically allocating patients to appropriate SHPHs and formulating efficient delivery routes aimed at enhancing home based healthcare services for chronic disease patients particularly whom diagnosed with hypertension in Hat Yai District, Songkhla Province, with a focus on individuals facing mobility limitations. The research proposes a conceptual framework integrating spatial analysis and operations research techniques to improve community-level healthcare logistics. A two-stage solution was applied to solve the problem with the Location and Allocation Model and the Vehicle Routing Model. The first model selected the optimum location of SHPH and allocated patients to that location. The latter provided the medication distribution routing to each SHPS's patient. The exact method solved with LINGO satisfies the case study solution. The results indicate that, among nine candidate SHPHs, six were identified as optimal locations to participate in the service. Fifty-eight patients were effectively allocated to these facilities under capacity constraints, achieving a minimized total transportation and operational cost of 123,149.37 THB (1.000 THB = 0.02990 USD). The findings demonstrate that applying the Location Allocation Problem (LAP) and Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) through exact solution methods can effectively support planning and logistics management in home-based healthcare systems and can provide potential for application in other regional contexts in the future.
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