A partial coverage hierarchical location allocation model for health services

We consider a hierarchical maximal covering location problem (HMCLP) to locate health centres and hospitals so that the maximum demand is covered by two levels of services in a successively inclusive hierarchy. We extend the HMCLP by introducing the partial coverage and a new definition of the referral. The proposed model may enable an informed decision on the healthcare system when dynamic adaptation is required, such as a COVID-19 pandemic. We define the referral as coverage of health centres by hospitals. A hospital may also cover demand through referral. The proposed model is solved optimally for small problems. For large problems, we propose a customised genetic algorithm. Computational study shows that the GA performs well, and the partial coverage substantially affects the optimal solutions. [Submitted: 20 January 2021; Accepted: 15 January 2022]