Research

COVID-19 Research

Title :

Health care supply chain and capacity modelling during a pandemic

Area of research :

COVID-19 Research, Life Sciences & Biotechnology

Focus area :

COVID-19 Management

Principal Investigator :

Dr Peeyush Mehta, Professor, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta

Timeline Start Year :

2020

Contact info :

Details

Executive Summary :

In this study, the model for capacity allocation of health care resources is developed during a pandemic. The focus of the study is on hospital beds capacity sizing and allocation. The key challenge is that the demand is stochastic, and the capacity of beds is to be determined prior to the realisation of demand. As the pandemic evolves, different regions have varying requirements of the resources, based on the structural behaviour of the pandemic. In the first stage, an aggregate capacity of beds is determined in each region in each time period. This provides the bounds on the detailed allocation of the capacity in the second stage with a dynamic and shorter time horizon. The model exploits the fundamental trade-off of risks of demand and supply mismatch. Also the variability reduction of demand is incorporated by pooling the resources based on the impact of the disease. This creates enormous value in terms of minimising the impact of the pandemic

Outcome/Output:

Designed a multi-stage model that determines the optimal design and allocation of health care resources under supply and demand mismatch arising due to the pandemic. Insights for the policy makers and health care practitioners have been incorporated into the design of supply chain resources and to create an efficient and robust containment and response strategy for the pandemic.

Organizations involved