A Reliability-based Approach for Performance Optimization of Service Industries: An Application to Healthcare Systems

摘要

The performance of healthcare systems has always been a significant concern of policy makers. Performance in healthcare systems is assessed by multiple criteria, and it is a complex task to optimize the performance, considering the fact that outputs are mostly interrelated and some external factors affect performance of the system. This study aims to apply the Multi-Response Optimization (MRO) method for reliability-based performance optimization of healthcare systems. In this study, we consider all types of response variables so that strength features of the system are optimized against external stresses. The proposed approach in this research is based on the stress-strength model, and stresses are assumed to be normally distributed. Also, we present the implementation results of the proposed approach to a hospital in Iran for reliability-based optimization of the bed capacity planning. The results indicate that the proposed approach is powerful in tackling the inherent complexity of healthcare systems. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.