Transportation and Logistics Problems in the Healthcare Sector

物流问题的重点是货物和人员的组织、移动和储存，对医疗保健部门来说是核心问题。要确保物流活动的有效管理，需要持续努力，以考虑到医疗保健组织运营所处的具有挑战性的环境。在医疗保健部门，病人流动涉及许多相互关联的活动和参与者，每个参与者都有特定的角色和关于质量、成本和效率的精确目标。此外，医疗保健组织在一个具有高度动态性和随机性的环境中运作。这大大增加了活动规划的复杂性。为了在如此复杂的背景下支持决策，医疗保健后勤人员需要能够处理源自现实生活环境的特定特征的决策支持工具和分析方法。这项研究计划旨在为医疗保健部门的运输和物流问题提供建模框架和有效的解决方法。构建模型和解决方案方法，正确处理医疗保健组织运营的复杂环境(包括不确定性)，将提供对其物流的更现实表示，并提供对解决不确定情况下决策的方法的更好理解。这项研究计划集中在三个主要问题上：紧急医疗服务资源的定位，病人运输的规划，以及协同应急响应的后勤管理。目标是为这三个后勤问题找到更好的解决方案，以降低运营成本和提高医疗保健服务的质量。为了显示其重要性，我们估计魁北克省每年进行超过68万次救护车运输，在一家拥有677个床位的医院中，每年大约有35万人次在医院内运输。从理论和方法的角度来看，该项目依赖于运筹学技术来建模和解决运输和物流问题，特别是在不确定情况下的优化方法。这一研究计划产生的模型和解决方案将有益于医疗保健和物流领域的研究人员、从业者和政策制定者。在整个项目周期中，将特别注意产生可用于实践并具有实际应用的结果，从而从整体角度最大限度地发挥研究计划的影响。面对人口老龄化和医疗成本系统性上升的挑战，医疗物流可以提供新的方法和解决方案，在不损害医疗系统的财务和社会稳定的情况下提供更好的服务和改善患者体验。

Issues of logistics, which focuses on the organization, movement and storage of goods and people, are central to the healthcare sector. Ensuring efficient management of logistics activities requires that continuous efforts are deployed to take into account the challenging environment in which healthcare organizations operate. In the healthcare sector, many interconnected activities and actors are involved in patient flow, each actor having a specific role and precise objectives with respect to quality, cost, and efficiency. In addition, healthcare organizations operate in an environment characterized by a high degree of dynamism and stochasticity. This significantly complicates the planning of activities. To support decision-making in such a complex context, healthcare logisticians need decision support tools and analytical methods capable of dealing with the specific characteristics that stem from real-life settings. This research program aims to provide modelling framework and efficient solution approaches to transportation and logistics problems in the healthcare sector. Building models and solution approaches that properly address the complex environment in which healthcare organizations operate, including uncertainties, will provide a more realistic representation of their logistics, and offer a better understanding of approaches to address decision-making under uncertainty. This research program focuses on three main issues: locating resources for emergency medical services, planning patient transportation, and managing the logistics of collaborative emergency responses. The goal is to find better solutions to these three logistical issues in order to reduce operating costs and improve the quality of healthcare services. To show their importance, we estimate that over 680,000 ambulance transportations are performed annually in the Province of Quebec, and approximately 350,000 intrahospital transportations occur annually in a 677-bed hospital.From a theoretical and methodological standpoint, this program relies on operations research techniques to model and solve transportation and logistics problems, and in particular, approaches for optimization under uncertainty. Models and solutions stemming from this research program will be beneficial to researchers, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of healthcare and logistics. Throughout the project cycle, special attention will be given to producing findings that can be used in practice and have tangible applications, thus maximizing the impact of the research program in a holistic perspective. Rising to the challenge of an aging population and a systemic increase of healthcare costs, healthcare logistics can provide new approaches and solutions to offer better services and improve patient experience without compromising the financial and social stability of the healthcare system.