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The Cash in Transit (CIT) deals with the money distribution and picking up between depot(s), central bank, bank branches, Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), jewelry stores, and exchange offices, safely and quickly. It is critical for companies carrying out CIT activities to identify risks and their priorities. It is one of the problems to be resolved for CIT companies to determine the risks that may occur on the route for each vehicle that will carry money from a certain center to the demand points. It is important for decision makers how critical these routes are concerning risks. Within the scope of the study, determining the risks, the weights of these risks, and high-risk routes accordingly are discussed. The literature review related to the problem is first consulted. After the literature review, interviews are made with experts on their subject. The main criteria and sub-criteria to define the risks are determined. Then, these criteria are weighted by the Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (IVIF-AHP), and risk assessment is made to alternative routes based on these weighted risks. The routes are evaluated by Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (IVIF-TOPSIS) methodology, and thus, it is determined which route has the highest risk and which route has the lowest risk. In this way, it is stated on which route should be used for the vehicles to distribute money and which routes should be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased focus of people on the quality of health care in recent years has led hospital owners to develop strategies and policies to improve medical services through the establishment of new hospitals. For hospitals to be competitive, the hospitalʼs location and proximity to potential patients are considered crucial factors in establishing new hospitals. In this context, evaluating and selecting the most suitable hospital location to establish a new hospital from the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) perspective is a priority for the entrepreneurs or government to gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, this study aims to present a systematic literature review of the hospital location selection problem considering the applied methods and application areas. The preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis statement (PRISMA) are used as a reference framework. Initially, known electronic databases (Web of science, IEEEXplore, Scopus, Science direct, and Google Scholar) were searched up to the early 2021. A number of 47 articles are selected and analyzed under this systematic framework based on inclusion-exclusion points. State-of-the-art developments in adopting MCDM methods and their fuzzy extensions are summarized. All the articles have been examined in a systematic taxonomy to find answers to six research questions (trend, country of origin, outlet journal, MCDM methods used, MCDM environment and criteria type, and decision criteria used). Results show that (1) AHP and GIS-based MCDM models are the most contributing approaches to the solution of this problem, (2) location selection criteria are mostly cost, demand, environment, population, government, competition in the market, and distance to some important places, (3) the fuzzy structure is also preferred in addition to the MCDM structure depending on the crisp data type, and (4) the location selection criteria are mostly considered subjective. We pay attention to promising directions that can dominate future research in this field from a methodological or applicability perspective. This study shows the current views and opportunities for researchers and practitioners and acts as a guide to encourage more creative studies in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adverse impact of occupational accidents and occupational diseases on the society have recently increased a lot since the industrial-oriented society is getting more and more widespread. Although attempts regarding occupational health and safety (OHS) increase in Turkey, they are still at an inadequate level. OHS experts prepare employees for a healthy and safer working environment, so that work accidents can be eliminated and employees can be healthy psychologically and physically. At the same time, the worksites can be prevented from being financially damaged and productivity can be improved. The aim of this study is to measure OHS service quality by the evaluations of OHS experts from various sectors and workplaces. In this way, the OHS performance is measured, the difference between perceptions and expectations of the OHS experts is determined and deficiencies are revealed. In the study, the OHS activities are examined in five dimensions using the SERVQUAL scale; tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The questionnaire is carried out using a Likert-type five-point scale among 81 OHS experts from different sectors. In conclusion, SERVQUAL analysis is introduced as a useful tool for employers to better understand what they need to know about OHS services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is a basis to reduce occupational accidents in an acceptable level, and it covers employee health, safety, and welfare in the workplaces. Hospitals as the largest employer group in healthcare industry in Turkey face major hazards categorized as chemical, biological, physical, ergonomic, and psychosocial risks. Although Turkey demonstrates rapid economic growth, OHS practices have not been fully put into practice, and necessary attention has not been paid to the health industry. For this reason, this paper aims to assess risks for health staff, contribute for planning of health services, and enhance regulations. A case study was carried out in a leading hospital in Turkey using a two-stage fuzzy multi-criteria approach, which provides more consistency in decision-making process and gives an appropriate final rank of hazard types. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) is used in weighing five risk parameters, which are severity, occurrence, undetectability, sensitivity to maintenance non-execution, and sensitivity to personal protective equipment (PPE) non-utilization. The fuzzy VIKOR (FVIKOR) approach is then applied for prioritization of hazard types in each department of the hospital. On conclusion of the hazard control hierarchy, measures are overtaken for the hazards, and areas open for improvement are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emergency departments (EDs) face high numbers of patient arrivals in comparison to other departments of hospitals because they provide non-stop service. Patient arrivals at these departments mostly do not appear in a steady state. Predicting existing uncertainty contributes to the future planning of these departments. Therefore, forecasting patient arrivals at emergency departments is crucial so as to make short and long term plans for physical capacity requirements, staffing, budgeting and arranging staff schedules. In this paper, variations in annual, monthly and daily ED arrivals are analyzed based on regression and neural network models with the aid of a collected data from a public hospital ED in Istanbul. The results show that ANNbased models have higher model accuracy values and lower values of absolute error in terms of forecasting the ED patient arrivals over the long and medium terms. The paper is also aimed to provide ED management and medical staff a useful guide for future planning of their emergency departments in the light of an accurate forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to review what is known about the preparedness of hospital emergency departments (EDs) for a possible major earthquake expected in the near future in Istanbul and reveal the past experience and future plans from employees' viewpoints and, as well as from the related literature. For this purpose, potential effects of the earthquakes on ED operations, patient flow, and performance are discussed considering the statistical data of recent earthquakes in Turkey, a comprehensive report on the disaster preparedness of Istanbul and, one to one interviews with the earthquake experienced ED medical staff. In particular, issues on patient surge, triage and registration, communication, patient flow and transportation and, lack of enough resources and space to treat are presented as the main challenges. According to the viewpoints obtained from various sources, EDs in Istanbul are not ready to meet the needs caused by a major earthquake. It is proposed that operational research (OR) techniques can be useful to overcome these issues such as simulation modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of a discrete-event simulation (DES) model of an emergency department (ED) unit in a regional university hospital in Turkey. In this paper emergency department operations of the hospital were modeled, analyzed and improved. The goal of the study is to reduce patient average length of stay (LOS) and to improve patient throughput and utilization of locations and human resources (doctors, nurses, receptionists). Some alternative scenarios in an attempt to determine optimal staff level were evaluated. These alternative approaches illustrate that vital improvement in LOS and throughput can be obtained by minor changes in shift hours and number of resources. Considering future changes in patient demand a scenario which reduces LOS and improves throughput is available in the paper. Significance: The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to determine and improve system performance in healthcare emergency departments consist of to reduce patient average length of stay (LOS), to improve patient throughput and resource utilization rates. Alternative scenarios and optimal staff levels are enhanced within the scope of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer simulations are used to represent the essential features of a real system so that learners can test their analytical and design skills in a convenient and safe environment. This article describes Arena, a commercially available, highly specialized, off-the-shelf software simulation package. Also an Arena model has been investigated in a workshop. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 16: 1–11, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20182 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A different intermodal transportation model based on cost analysis considering technical, economical, and operational parameters is presented. The model consists of such intermodal modes as sea-road, sea-railway, road-railway, and multimode of sea-road-railway. A case study of cargo transportation has been carried out by using the suggested model. Then, the single road transportation mode has been compared to intermodal modes in terms of transportation costs. This comparison takes into account the external costs of intermodal transportation. The research reveals that, in the short distance transportation, single transportation modes always tend to be advantageous. As the transportation distance gets longer, intermodal transportation advantages begin to be effective on the costs. In addition, the proposed method in this study leads to determining the fleet size and capacity for transportation and the appropriate transportation mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]