Integrated technique for the optimization of healthcare facility problem

Access to basic health care services is one of the major issues in developing nations. The location of health care facilities is an important aspect in health care delivery. It is therefore necessary for health care services to be located optimally to serve the demands well. This study develops an integrated methodology in the field of healthcare location which minimizes the weighted average Euclidean distance between existing facilities and new facility in a way that demands will not have to travel a very long distance to access medical facilities. Geographic information systems (GIS) were used to store and handle the coordinates and weights of the existing facilities. While the Weber model and Weiszfeld’s algorithm was employed to determine the new healthcare location. The technique was applied to a case study in one of the local government areas in Nigeria. Our results show that the methodology can find a new facility to support demands in the study area. The proposed model can also be applied in studies of a similar nature as in location of library, medical drugs and equipment warehouse and support facility in emergency cases.