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Fuzzy decision making in health systems: a resource allocation model

  • Original Article
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EURO Journal on Decision Processes

Abstract

The efficient use of resources in health systems is important due to the increasing demand and limited funding. Large health systems often have fixed input resources (such as budget and staffing) to be allocated among individual hospitals/clinics with particular target output levels. We propose an optimization model with fuzzy constraints that can be used for automatic resource re-allocation with respect to different levels of risk preferences. We illustrate its applicability using data from a U.S. Army hospital network. The implications of the proposed fuzzy decision-making model for healthcare decision makers and its relevance to healthcare policy and management are also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DGE1255832. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, United States Army, Texas State University, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Pennsylvania State University, Texas Tech University, or Georgia Institute of Technology.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. McCoy College of Business Administration, Texas State University, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, TX, 78666, USA

    Tahir Ekin

  2. Department of Statistics, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Silahsor Cad. No. 89, 34380, Sisli, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ozan Kocadagli

  3. Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 355 Leonhard Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Nathaniel D. Bastian

  4. Rawls College of Business Administration, Texas Tech University, 703 Flint Ave, Lubbock, TX, 79410, USA

    Lawrence V. Fulton

  5. School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 755 Ferst Drive, NW, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Paul M. Griffin

Authors
  1. Tahir Ekin
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  2. Ozan Kocadagli
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  3. Nathaniel D. Bastian
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  4. Lawrence V. Fulton
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  5. Paul M. Griffin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tahir Ekin.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 4, 5.

Table 4 MHS performance results for the input-oriented DEA model
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Table 5 MHS referent hospitals for the input-oriented DEA model
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Ekin, T., Kocadagli, O., Bastian, N.D. et al. Fuzzy decision making in health systems: a resource allocation model. EURO J Decis Process 4, 245–267 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40070-015-0049-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40070-015-0049-x

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