Hospital stockpiling for disaster planning

Abstract

In response to the increasing threat of terrorist attacks and natural disasters, governmental and private organizations worldwide have invested significant resources in disaster planning activities. This article addresses joint inventory stockpiling of medical supplies for groups of hospitals prior to a disaster. Specifically, the problem of determining the stockpile quantity of a medical item at several hospitals is considered. It is assumed that demand is uncertain and driven by the characteristics of a variety of disaster scenarios. Furthermore, it is assumed that hospitals have mutual aid agreements for inventory sharing in the event of a disaster. Each hospital's desire to minimize its stockpiling cost together with the potential to borrow from other stockpiles creates individual incentives well represented in a game-theoretic framework. This problem is modeled as a non-cooperative strategic game, the existence of a Nash equilibrium is proved, and the equilibrium solutions are analyzed. A centralized model of stockpile decision making where a central decision maker optimizes the entire system is also examined and the solutions obtained using this model are compared to those of the decentralized (game) model. The comparison provides some managerial insights and public health policy implications valuable for disaster planning.

Inventory Sharing Strategy for Disposable Medical Items between Two Hospitals

“…For instance, Stefanini et al [28] consider the behaviors of medical staff and health managers when developing resource planning strategies for lung cancer patients. In addition, Adida et al [29] explore the hospital stockpiling policy for disaster prevention, which is a proactive inventory transshipment policy before the disaster happens. In contrast to their work, our paper analyzes the emergency inventory sharing policy for hospital stockout, which is a reactive inventory transshipment policy after the stockout happens.…”

“…In contrast to their work, our paper analyzes the emergency inventory sharing policy for hospital stockout, which is a reactive inventory transshipment policy after the stockout happens. Another difference is that Adida et al [29] only focus on the stockpile decision-making and neglect hospitals' safety stock, while our paper explores the sharing decision-making when considering the effects of hospitals' safety stock level. Most importantly, we also investigate the impacts of patients' behavior on hospitals' inventory decisions.…”

Evaluating relief center designs for disaster relief distribution

“…Akkihal (2006) investigates pre-positioning of non-consumable items for humanitarian operations. Adida et al (2011) focus specifically on stockpiling at hospitals for disaster planning and Acimovic and Goentzel (2016) investigate stockpiling decisions ( for non-food items including blankets, buckets, mosquito nets) using stochastic optimization models. Sodhi and Tang (2014) focus on integrating local micro-retailers while solving the pre-positioning problem to support local economies affected by disasters.…”

Building Supply Chain Resilience through Virtual Stockpile Pooling

“…Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies stockpile medical supplies and drugs for disaster‐response (Adida et al. , Sheffi , Shen et al. ); manufacturers stockpile key components to hedge against supply disruptions (Maddah et al.…”