Chapter Three - Designing a cooperative hierarchical model of interdiction median problem with protection and its solution approach: A case study of health-care network

Abstract

This chapter presents a novel cooperative hierarchical protection-interdiction-allocation model for a real-world health network where clinics, hospitals, and medical centers are subject to the cooperative attacks and defensive operations. To identify the relationship between different levels of the health facilities, a three-level four-service hierarchy with service referral is considered. The capacitated network is taken into account in the model which manages assignment and referrals associated with demands at patient zones as well as basic health care, diagnostic, outpatient, and inpatient services. To ensure the health-care service quality, an internal probability and cooperative probability and protection resource are defined on the power of attackers and defender, respectively. The novel problem is modeled based on a bi-level optimization approach considering two decision makers, i.e., a leader (defender) and a follower (several attackers). The decisions are defined in two levels such that a defender should protect some clinics, hospitals, and medical centers against the possible cooperative attacks that can only be specified in a lower-level subproblem. A hybrid solution approach based on a tabu search algorithm and a double-layer neural network is proposed to solve the model. To show the applicability of the presented mathematical model and the effectiveness of the designed solution approach, a practical case study is introduced. Computational studies illustrate that the developed model can be applied as a decision-making tool for the designer of health-care network to select appropriate strategies in protecting health facilities against cooperative attacks.