A Novel Mathematical Model for Designing of Hierarchical Temporary Emergency Facilities Network in Disaster Situation

Designing health facilities has long been one of the most important issues for health planners. During the disaster, the health network, which includes a set of clinics and hospitals, are activated to help the injured people. The purpose of this study is to add temporary emergency treatment centers to the network, in order to prevent the influx and overcrowding at the two levels of clinics and hospitals during the disaster and to create a hierarchical structure to serve the casualties. In this paper, a mixed linear integer programming with integers is used. Gams optimization software was used to solve the model. The results showed that the hierarchical model reduced the crowding in hospitals and clinics during disaster compared to the simple model. In this model, while optimizing the cost of setting up emergency treatment centers, the time and distance traveled for casualties are minimized. Using the proposed model of the best places to establish emergency treatment centers among the selected candidate points and then the optimal allocation of injuries is determined hierarchically from city areas to temporary emergency treatment centers, and from there to clinics and ultimately to hospitals.