Optimizing the Number of Hospital’s Emergency Department in Petaling Jaya Using Set Covering Problem Analysis

Abstract

The emergency department (ED) has evolved into a critical frontline service for unscheduled patients who arrive at the hospital and need urgent attention. Its primary function is to diagnose, stabilize and treat the patients facing life-threatening illness, critical injuries, or other urgent medical conditions. EDs operate 24 hours a day for every day a week to provide efficient service to the patients at any time. However, the ED is struggling to provide the service and ensure all potential demand are efficiently covered. This is proved by the previous research that, if the demand is too far from the ED, the mortality rate will increase. Therefore, the main goal of this research is to find the least number of EDs needed as ambulance location and emergency provider for fast response to priority case 1, to cover all potential demand within a certain distance, specifically in Petaling Jaya. The Maximal Covering Location Problem (MCLP) and Maximum Expected Covering Location Problem (MEXCLP) will be used to find the efficiency of the 14 existing EDs required to cover all the demand in Petaling Jaya. The output of this research could be used to identify the optimal number of EDs in Petaling Jaya.