Long-term Health Care Facilities Planning for Singapore: A Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Optimization Approach

Cong Jing

Abstract

Healthcare is an essential service in all countries regardless of development status. It involves a large amount of critical resources, and the optimal use of these resources becomes a high priority. In Singapore, health care facilities consist of hospitals, community hospitals, polyclinics and private clinics, which are planned and operated independently of each other. However, the huge increase in demand for more hospital beds by a rapidly ageing population and the large influx of foreigners in recent years. The Singapore government should consider building additional health care facilities to satisfy the demand. The objective of this research is to investigate the current healthcare facilities in Singapore in order to understand its current landscape and limitations in the light of an aging population in the future. The quality of the current healthcare facilities are evaluated using optimization models based on population distribution, travel distances, and bed-capacity of the hospitals. Next the long term health care facilities planning for Singapore is studied. Based on population projection from the government population white paper, the optimal number of additional healthcare facilities are determined based on different quality of service. The suitability of six potential locations for these additional facilities were assessed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and their location determined by P-median optimization models. Finally, our results provide a tool for healthcare authorities to manage and plan the long-term healthcare facilities for Singapore, top enable the population to have better and more convenient access to health care facilities.