Maximizing Healthcare Coverage for Referral Hospitals: An Optimization Study of Emergency Cardiac Care in Bungoma County, Kenya
This project focuses exclusively on referral hospitals that offer specialized healthcare services—specifically, emergency cardiac care. Using advanced optimization techniques such as the Maximal Covering Location Problem (MCLP), distance decay functions, and detailed spatial analysis, the study aims to strategically maximize service coverage and minimize response times for patients in need of critical cardiac care.
The following sections showcase various stages of the project through maps and plots that visualize population density, isochrone accessibility, candidate site selection, and the final optimization results tailored for referral hospitals.
Population Density & Existing Referral Hospitals
This map displays a heatmap of the population density across Bungoma County alongside existing referral hospitals that provide emergency cardiac care. It highlights areas with high demand for specialized cardiac services.
Isochrone Analysis
The 15-minute isochrone map illustrates areas reachable within 15 minutes from referral hospitals offering emergency cardiac care. After clipping and merging overlapping isochrones, the resulting map shows consolidated coverage zones, enabling a clear evaluation of healthcare accessibility for emergency cardiac care.
Candidate Site Selection
Potential candidate sites were identified using a grid-based approach and proximity to major roads. These sites were evaluated for their capacity to maximize coverage for referral hospitals offering emergency cardiac care.
Optimization Results: Facility Location
The final step applies the MCLP with distance decay functions to determine the optimal locations for new referral hospitals specializing in emergency cardiac care. This plot shows the selected candidate sites that maximize patient coverage.
Final Map: Optimized Referral Hospital Locations
The final map overlays the optimized candidate sites with existing referral hospitals and population density, offering a comprehensive view of strategic facility placement for emergency cardiac care.
