Day and Night: Locating the General Practitioner's Panel after Hours

Location science is used to determine the optimal geographical placement of primary care resources with operations research models. In determining the optimal placement, we account for the objectives of both patients and physicians. These objectives and the methods used to address them differ between daytime and after-hours settings. These time settings are treated separately since primary care services are typically limited during after-hours operations. Three solution approaches are considered to address both time settings: independent, sequential, and simultaneous. The independent approach is based on the p-Median problem, and the other two approaches use modified forms of the p-Median. Three case studies are examined by applying these models to census data from Nova Scotia. Solving the daytime and after-hours problem simultaneously consistently yields the best results while considering facility-sharing constraints.

Automated summary

Location science is used in this study to determine the optimal placement of primary care resources. Different objectives and methods are considered for daytime and after-hours settings due to limited services during after-hours operations. Three solution approaches are applied to solve both time settings, and the simultaneous approach consistently provides the best results while considering facility-sharing constraints.