Open AccessOptimizing health facility location for universal health care: A case study from the Philippines
Author(s) -
Lorenzo Jaime Yu Flores,
Ramon Rafael D Tonato,
Gabrielle Ann dela Paz,
Valerie Gilbert T. Ulep
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0256821
Subject(s) - health facility , facility location problem , equity (law) , health care , universal coverage , business , low and middle income countries , selection (genetic algorithm) , open source , computer science , facility management , developing country , operations research , health services , health policy , medicine , environmental health , economic growth , marketing , economics , software , population , engineering , artificial intelligence , law , political science , programming language
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.