A log-linearization of the p-median fortification problem for healthcare system

Abstract

This paper focuses on developing an investment strategy to enhance the resilience of healthcare systems. This problem, called p-median fortification problem, has been introduced by Starita and Scaparra (2022). It aggregates two sub-problems which are to minimize the travel cost and to minimize the number of patients not treated by the system. The problem is formulated as a non-linear model to determine an effective distribution of protective resources among facilities in service or supply system to improve the system reliability. In this paper, we present a new linear approximation of the p-median fortification problem based on log-linearization techniques. The proposed approach is tested based on a benchmark inspired form the literature and the obtained results illustrate the effectiveness the new approximation approach.