The Optimized Location of Hospitals Using an Integrated Approach GIS and Analytic Hierarchy Process: A Case Study in Iran

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Adopting a proper location for a hospital will result in allocating optimal resources, improving access to health care, improving the quality of hospital services, reducing the waste of time, reducing energy consumption, decreasing costs, and reducing traffic. Accordingly, this study was conducted to adopt the optimal location for hospitals in Yazd City, Iran. Materials and Methods: This research is descriptive in terms of type and applied in terms of objectives. The used criteria for this study covered data related to military, residential, sports, industrial, green space, education, population density, communication roads, and available hospitals. All effective criteria were distinguished, and a map of each criterion was provided to locate the hospitals optimally. The weight of each criterion was determined by the analytic hierarchy process method and applied to the maps in the GIS software environment. The final land valuation map was prepared by combining the maps to construct the hospital. Results: The highest weight was calculated for the population density layer (0.24) and the lowest for the sports layer (0.025). The classified map to construct a hospital in Yazd City, Iran was classified into 5 categories, from very appropriate to very inappropriate. The map revealed that about 34% of the studied area is appropriate for building a hospital. Conclusion: Due to the importance of proper geographical access to hospital treatment facilities, it is recommended that new hospitals in Yazd be constructed on very appropriate land plots, and the priority in building a hospital to be very appropriate land plots located in the fourth district.