A Simulation-Optimisation approach for hospital beds allocation

The planning of hospital beds is among the most debated problems in healthcare. Despite being an important issue, many initiatives have failed to sustain services improvements, resulting in high costs and also high refusal rates. The stochastic problem involves conflicting criteria, therefore, we propose a Simulation-Optimisation approach to solve it. The Evolutionary Algorithm NSGA-II drives the process, and the solutions are validated and evaluated via Discrete Event Simulation. An application is performed in one of the health regions of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, where the public health system assists nearly 80% of the patients. The results pointed out that the proposed approach could find efficient and feasible solutions for the problem. Therefore, it is a good alternative to empirical methods currently used in Brazil to set hospital beds allocation.