How, When, & Where Temporary Hospitals Fit in Turbulent Times: A Hybrid MADM Optimization in the Middle East.

ABSTRACT

Governments have been challenged to provide temporary hospitals and other types of facilities to face the COVID-19 pandemic. This research proposes a novel multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) model to help determine how, when, and where these temporary facilities should be installed based on a set of critical success factors (CSFs) mapped in an uncertain environment. We portray the available facilities for temporary hospitals based on the CSFs that must be considered to make critical decisions regarding the optimal position based on the government's strategic decision-making process, thus indirectly providing better services and maximizing resources. In relation to earlier work, this research builds upon hybrid Pythagorean fuzzy numbers to find weights in Best-Worst Methods and rank temporary facilities based on evaluation by an area-based method for ranking. Policy implications and future directions are derived.