ABSTRACT
In recent years, drone delivery has become one of the most widely adopted emerging technologies. Under the current Covid-19 pandemic, drones greatly improve logistics, especially in rural areas, where inefficient road networks and long distances between customers reduce the delivery capacity of conventional ground vehicles. Considering the limited flight range of drones, charging stations play essential roles in the rural delivery system. In this study, we utilize simulation to optimize the drone delivery system design, in order to minimize the cost of serving the maximum capacity of customers. As facility siting is usually difficult to optimize, we propose a novel simulation-heuristic framework that continuously improves the objective to find near-optimal solutions. In addition, we conduct a case study using real-world data collected from Knox County, Tennessee. The results suggest that the proposed approach saves over 15% on total costs compared with the benchmark. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
An additional helicopter base has been built for the Government Flying Service at the former Kai Tak airport runway site in Hong Kong, China. The base allows high-rise development to take place at Tung Chung new town near the service's existing base at Hong Kong International airport, which would have restricted emergency helicopter operations during poor weather. The project involved construction of a take-off and landing pad, parking bays and hangar for two helicopters, plus an office building for the flight planning centre and air command and control centre. This paper describes how use of an NEC contract helped ensure close collaboration between the employer and contractor, leading to timely completion with zero accidents despite restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has spread to the world in a short time since its emergence in Wuhan, China, and mobilized international health authorities with its effects, continues its development seriously. Due to the fast spread of COVID-19, governments have made some decisions to build new temporary hospitals for patients infected with COVID-19. This situation increased the importance of the site selection process for a pandemic hospital during the current critical time. Site selection of a hospital can be considered as multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem since it includes multiple factors. This paper applies an analytical tool for evaluating the criteria of the site selection of a pandemic hospital. For this purpose, the extended best–worst method with trapezoidal interval type-2 fuzzy numbers (IT2FBWM) is employed to determine the importance weights of the pandemic hospital site selection criteria. The paper's findings point out that the IT2FBWM model can help decision-makers determine the importance weights of the criteria used in the pandemic hospital siting decisions. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
DKI Jakarta has the highest number of Covid-19 increasing cases in Indonesia, especially the Penjaringan Subdistrict, North Jakarta has a high potential for Covid-19 because of its strategic location and close to Soekarno-Hatta Airport. The distribution of health facilities in the Penjaringan Subdistrict is an essential thing to suppress the growth of Covid-19 cases. This study aims to analyze the resilience of health facilities based on the accessibility and suitability of the number of people served in each facility. This research used secondary data and was guided by Indonesian National Standard (abbreviated SNI) Number 03-1733-2004 about Tata Cara Perencanaan Lingkungan Perumahan di Perkotaan also known as Procedures for Planning a Residential Environment in Urban Area. This study uses the buffering method with ArcMap and assessing the facilities’ availability. The results showed that all villages in Penjaringan Subdistrict are served by available health facilities based on the distance. Meanwhile, six types of health facilities are incompatible with the standard and one type of health facility is compatible with the standard.
ABSTRACT
Introduction The standard of care for patients with multiple myeloma (MM) involves autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (ASCT). Pre-ASCT mobilization chemotherapy for MM, vinorelbine and high dose cyclophosphamide (VC), has been historically given in the inpatient (IP) setting. Due to rising bed occupancy rates and patients' preferences for treatment in the ambulatory setting, our team has offered eligible patients an option to receive VC outpatient (OP) since 2018. Our study aims to audit the feasibility and safety of this initiative, and review potential healthcare-related cost savings. Methods Eligibility criteria for OP chemotherapy were developed by a multidisciplinary team based on patients' age, functional status, medical comorbidities and social factors (Figure 1). The chemotherapy regimen was modified for an OP setting (Figure 2), of which the main alteration involved changing the route of administration of intravenous (IV) mesna to a combination of IV and oral. A retrospective review was conducted for 35 MM patients (18 IP and 17 OP) who received VC for mobilisation at our center from 2018 to 2019. The patient characteristics were similar between the two groups (Table 1). Patient data were analyzed from the day of admission for VC (IP) or day 1 of VC (OP), to the day before admission for stem cell harvesting. Clinical charts were reviewed for unexpected complications and unplanned admissions. Costs incurred were calculated using the value-driven-outcome (VDO) informatics analysis of the hospital. Results There were no unexpected clinical complications or unplanned admissions in both groups. The median length of hospital stay for the IP cohort was 3 days, amounting to a saving of 51 hospital days over 2 years in the OP cohort. Median costs were 73% lower in the OP cohort (Figure 3). The difference was mainly due to certain costs not incurred in the OP setting. These included room charges and daily treatment fees (which accounted for an average of 46% and 19% of IP charges respectively). Investigation costs were also 55% lower in the OP cohort, which could be attributed to more investigations being performed in the IP setting such as screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and nonurgent radiographs ordered after hours by the on-call physician upon admission. Conclusions Our findings show that OP mobilization chemotherapy for MM is safe, feasible and associated with improved bed utilization and cost savings. Other components of the stem cell transplantation process are also increasingly being transitioned from the IP to OP setting in our center as part of an ongoing paradigm shift in right-siting treatment services, which has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic's strain on inpatient capacity. These results provide an affirmation of our efforts to optimize the utilization of healthcare resources. [Formula presented] Disclosures: Chng: Takeda: Consultancy;GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy;Johnson & Johnson: Consultancy, Research Funding;Aslan: Research Funding;Antengene: Consultancy;Abbvie: Consultancy;Pfizer: Consultancy;Novartis: Research Funding;Sanofi: Consultancy;Amgen: Consultancy;BMS/Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding.