Health care supply chain and capacity modelling during a pandemic

Abstract

In this study, the model for capacity allocation of health care resources is developed during a pandemic. The focus of the study is on hospital beds capacity sizing and allocation. The key challenge is that the demand is stochastic, and the capacity of beds is to be determined prior to the realisation of demand. As the pandemic evolves, different regions have varying requirements of the resources, based on the structural behaviour of the pandemic. In the first stage, an aggregate capacity of beds is determined in each region in each time period. This provides the bounds on the detailed allocation of the capacity in the second stage with a dynamic and shorter time horizon. The model exploits the fundamental trade-off of risks of demand and supply mismatch. Also the variability reduction of demand is incorporated by pooling the resources based on the impact of the disease. This creates enormous value in terms of minimising the impact of the pandemic