Pandemic hospital site selection: a GIS-based MCDM approach employing Pythagorean fuzzy sets

Socioeconomic Barriers to Care for Pediatric Airways Utilizing Geographic Information Systems

OBJECTIVE

Geographic information systems (GIS) provide a unique set of tools to spatially analyze health care and identify patterns of health outcomes to help optimize delivery. Our goal is to create maps of pediatric tracheostomy patients using GIS to assess socioeconomic and other factors that impact postoperative care after discharge to home.

METHODS

A retrospective study was performed on patients (≤21 years old) who underwent tracheostomy at a tertiary care pediatric hospital from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2020. Using GIS, we geocoded patient addresses and conducted spatial analyses of the relationship between patients and access to health care providers as well as vulnerable population factors including poverty, educational attainment, and single-parent households.

RESULTS

A total of 156 patients were included. Patients initially discharged to transitional care (108/156, 69.2%) had significantly higher likelihood of presenting to the ED regardless of socioeconomic status (OR: 2.28, 95% CI: 1.03-5.05; p = 0.042). There was no relationship between ED visit rate and median household income, poverty level, and percentage of uneducated adults (p = 0.490; p = 0.424; p = 0.752). Median distance to the tertiary care pediatric hospital was significantly longer for patients with no ED visit (median = 61.28 miles; SD = 50.90) compared with those with an ED visit (median = 37.75 miles; SD = 35.92) (p = 0.002).

CONCLUSION

The application of GIS could provide geo-localized data to better understand the healthcare barriers to access for children with tracheostomies. This study uniquely integrates medical record data with socioeconomic factors and social determinants of health.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

4 Laryngoscope, 134:1919-1925, 2024.

Research on the location decision-making method of emergency medical facilities based on WSR

The need for emergency medical services increased drastically during disaster relief. Poor location selection of emergency medical facilities may harm the interests of healthcare workers and patients, leading to unnecessary waste of costs. It involves multiple stakeholders' interests, a typical multi-criteria decision-making problem. Based on multiple-criteria decision-making technology, most current location selection decisions methods comprehensively consider the evaluation criteria of "issue" and "problem" simultaneously and establish mathematical models to achieve the results. Such methods are difficult to take into account the influence of different attribute factors on the final location selection results in practice. Therefore, in this study, we used the WSR methodology as a guide to divide the factors of location selection into "Wuli", "Shili" and "Renli", and proposed the WSR methodology-based multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework for selecting the appropriate location for emergency medical facilities. The integrated framework consists of the Entropy Weight Method, Best-Worst Method, and interval type-2 fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methodologies. Combined with the comparative analysis of actual cases, the results under the guidance of this framework were consistent with practicalities. Also, the sensitivity analysis showed that the location selection ranking fluctuations were not apparent with the fluctuation of criteria weights. Wherefore, the validation of the proposed method's effectiveness, feasibility, and robustness was proved, which provided a valuable reference for the location selection of emergency medical facilities.

Solar PV power plant site selection using a GIS-based non-linear multi-criteria optimization technique

The ongoing rise in energy consumption imposed serious environmental challenges by using fossil fuels. The use of renewable energy sources is being increasingly explored as a potential answer for achieving sustainable energy production and minimizing adverse environmental effects. In the modern day, photovoltaic (PV) systems are viewed as a possible replacement for fossil fuels as a clean energy source. The installation of solar PV power plants requires vast land and huge investment. Therefore, it is necessary to select a suitable site to achieve maximum efficiency and low cost. A feasible location of photovoltaic (PV) system must consider certain criteria including land restrictions, access to roads, and transmission lines. This study analyzed ten factors grouped into four categories: geographic, technical, economic, and flood susceptibility criterion. The data of each factor is extracted from various governments, United Nation (UN), and non-government organizational bodies. Weights were assigned to ten factors by using a non-linear multi-criteria optimization technique called full consistency method (FUCOM). A geographic information system (GIS) software, ESRI ArcGIS pro, performs the weighted overlay analysis of the ten factors with weighted importance calculated by the above technique. A suitability map is created showing that a total of 2.02% of the country's area is suitable for PV power plants, which are further divided into five suitability classes. The results highlight the distribution of suitable sites for the construction of solar PV power plant throughout the country. A sensitivity analysis is performed to highlight the impact of the factor on the final suitability map. These findings can promote the future widespread development and application of solar energy resources.

A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model with Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets for Evaluating Digital Technology Strategies in COVID-19 Pandemic Under Uncertainty

Coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an essential challenge to the health and safety of people, medical members, and treatment systems worldwide. Digital technologies (DTs) have been universally introduced to improve the treatment of patients during the pandemic. Nevertheless, only a few governments have been partly successful in executing the DT strategies. In this regard, it is critical to demonstrate a suitable strategy for the governments. This problem is built based on the experts' opinions with some conflicting criteria to evaluate various types of alternatives. Hence, this research presents a new multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model under uncertain conditions. For this reason, interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IVIFSs) are employed to help decision-makers (DMs) evaluate in a broader area and cope with uncertain information. Moreover, a new extended weighting method based on weighted distance-based approximation (WDBA) and a new combined ranking approach are proposed to determine the DMs' weights and rank the alternatives under IVIF conditions. The developed weighting method is constructed based on computing the DMs' weights with objective criteria weights. Furthermore, a new ranking approach is proposed by obtaining two ranking indexes separately: The first and second ranking indexes are calculated according to the positive and negative ideal solutions distances and the nature of criteria weights, respectively. Afterward, the final values of rankings are computed by considering a new aggregating procedure. The results of the proposed model represent the first alternative as the best strategy. Comparisons between the IVIF-TOPSIS and IVIF-VIKOR methods are also provided to investigate the proposed model to determine the rankings of main alternatives. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to check the reliability and the robustness of the model. For this purpose, criteria weights are analyzed to compute the dependencies' degree of the new extended weighting method. The dependencies of the ranking model are discussed on the criteria weights as well.

Application of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Analysis to Rural Spatial Sustainability Evaluation: A Systematic Review

The rational allocation of spatial resources is an important factor to ensure the sustainable development of rural areas, and effective pre-emptive spatial evaluation is the prerequisite for identifying the predicament of rural resource allocation. Multi-criteria decision-making analysis has advantages in solving multi-attribute and multi-objective decision-making problems, and has been used in sustainability evaluation research in various disciplines in recent years. Previous studies have proved the value of spatial evaluation using multi-criteria decision analysis in guiding rural incremental development and inventory updates, but systematic reviews of the previous literature from a multidisciplinary perspective and studies of the implementation steps of the evaluation framework are lacking. In the current paper, the research is reviewed from the two levels of quantitative statistics and research content, and through vertical and horizontal comparisons based on three common operating procedures: standard formulation, weight distribution, and ranking and verification. Through the results, the application status and characteristics of the MCDA method in related research are determined, and five research foci in the future are proposed.

Pallet truck selection with MEREC and WISP-S methods

Background: The article presents an MCDM model based on the MEREC and WISPS methods for pallet truck selection. Purpose: The main purpose of the study was to apply a new MCDM model for pallet truck selection in the textile workshop. Study design/methodology/approach: This article presents a simplified adoption of the Simple Weighted Sum Product (WISP) method, the Simplified WISP (WISP-S) method. The proposed method has fewer computation steps than the regular WISP method. In addition, this study proposes a new hybrid MCDM model in the literature by combining the MEREC method and the WISPS method. Finding/conclusions: The obtained results can be achieved in a shorter time compared to regular WISP. The application of the new method is considered in this study. In order to check whether the WISPS method achieves accurate results, the results of the WISPS method and the results of the ROV and WASPAS methods were compared. As a result of the comparison of the results of the methods, it was observed that the WISPS method achieved accurate results. Limitations/future research: As a direction for future research, other MCDM models can be applied for solving the same problem. When it comes to the limitations of the proposed model, it can be mentioned that the MCDM model is based on the use of crisp numbers.