An optimization framework for the sustainable healthcare facility location problem using a hierarchical conflict resolution approach

Optimal determination of healthcare facility locations is among critical strategic decisions that significantly impact long-term public health, well-being, and social welfare. In addition to the inherent complexities that arise from resource allocation and budget limitations in general facility location problems, this problem in the healthcare sector is even more complex. On one hand, since decision makers should consider various criteria in all aspects of sustainability in locating these facilities, this problem is a complex Multi-criteria decision-making problem. On the other hand, other objectives should also be considered in locating the mentioned facilities. As a result, this paper aims to develop a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MOMILP) model, one aspect of which is the Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) aspect of the problem by considering sustainable criteria for the healthcare facility location problem. We defined total travel distance, equity, local covering, effectiveness, and overlap functions as the objective functions of the developed model. A novel hierarchical conflict-resolution approach is included to rank the sub-criteria as a guideline for the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to find the weights of the criteria. To examine the effectiveness of the proposed model, we applied it to a real-world problem of locating preventive healthcare centers in Iran. As the final stage of the study, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to test the performance of the proposed framework in different possible scenarios. The results indicated that the approach is robust and applicable to real-life facility-location problems.