1. Optimizing health facility location for universal health care: A case study from the Philippines
- Author
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Gabrielle Ann dela Paz, Lorenzo Jaime Yu Flores, Ramon Rafael Tonato, and Valerie Gilbert T. Ulep
- Subjects
Operations research ,Computer science ,Universal design ,Philippines ,Social Sciences ,Transportation ,Health Services Accessibility ,Geographical Locations ,Health facility ,Health care ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,Geographic Areas ,Multidisciplinary ,Geography ,Applied Mathematics ,Simulation and Modeling ,Health Services ,Transportation Infrastructure ,Facility location problem ,Physical Sciences ,Medicine ,Engineering and Technology ,Algorithms ,Research Article ,Urban Areas ,Asia ,Science ,Site selection ,Primary care ,Human Geography ,Research and Analysis Methods ,Medical Services ,Civil Engineering ,Urban Geography ,Humans ,Developing Countries ,Poverty ,Primary Care ,Health Care Policy ,Primary Health Care ,business.industry ,Equity (finance) ,Roads ,Health Care ,Health Care Facilities ,People and Places ,Earth Sciences ,Universal Health Care ,Health Facilities ,Rural area ,business ,Mathematics - Abstract
Site selection of health facilities is critical in ensuring universal access to basic healthcare services. However, in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) like the Philippines, site selection is traditionally based on political and pragmatic considerations. Moreover, literature that demonstrates the application of facility location models in the Philippine healthcare setting remains scarce, and their usage in actual facility planning is even more limited. In this study, we proposed a variation of cooperative covering maximal models to identify the optimal location of primary care facilities. We demonstrated the feasibility of implementing such a model by using open source data on an actual city in the Philippines. Our results generated multiple candidate locations of primary care facilities depending on the equity and efficiency parameters. This approach could be used as one of the critical considerations in evidence-based, multi-criterion health facility location decisions of governments, and can also be adapted in other industries, given the model’s use of readily available open source datasets.
- Published
- 2021