A Configuration Strategy for Emergency Medical Supplies in Earthquake
Disaster
Xue-dong Liang1, Rong Huang2, Ying-kang Shi3, Lei Xie4, Jian Liu5
1, First Author
Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
*3, Corresponding Author
West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
4
West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
5
West China Medical School, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
(1 liangxuedong@scu.edu.cn, 2793992167@qq.com, 3syk@mcwcums.com,
4
lei xie@mcwcums.com,586001576@qq.com)
2
Abstract - Along with the increasing frequency in
emergency in our country, medical rescue is becoming more
and more important, and the configuration of emergency
medical supplies is especially vital. In allusion to earthquake
emergency, a classification for earthquake emergency
medical supplies is presented firstly, and then the evaluation
index of emergency material allocation efficiency is founded.
The weight on the evaluation index of emergency material
allocation efficiency is gotten by rough sets. Finally, take
Wenchuan earthquake for example, the emergency medical
supplies configuration of West China Hospital is evaluated,
and a viable configuration strategy for emergency medical
supplies in earthquake disaster is put forward.
Keywords - attribute significance, emergency medical
supplies, index system, rough sets
reengineering program of medical supplies purchase
process and they project the purchase business process
based on the actual purchasing situation in a hospital;
Jian-ming Zhu[2] and Jun Huang put forward a new
randomized algorithm on the basis of traditional vehicle
routing model to minimize unmet demand and time
delays; Ke Li[3] and Long-han Ke discuss about the plan
of drug-related emergency in primary hospital. Based on
the events mentioned above, we can find researches in all
respects of emergency medical supplies achieve a
remarkable effect, This paper makes a try in another way,
investigating the earthquake emergency material
allocation efficiency synthetically and reclassifying
earthquake emergency material supplies.
I. INTRODUCTION
II EMERGENCY MEDICAL SUPPLIES ANALYSIS
Emergencies can not be avoided or prognosticated, a
large scale emergency usually bring a large number of
casualties and heavy losses in economy, and decreasing
the losses that the emergency has made is always the main
goal in medical aid after disasters. After Tangshan
earthquake, a lot of large scale emergencies had happened
in our country, such as Wenchuan earthquake, Southern
ice plague, Yushu earthquake and so on, these all made
great economic losses and many casualties. Along with
the increasing frequency in emergency in our country, the
goal of reducing the losses in disasters is more important;
moreover, the medical rescue is an important part in aid
after disasters. When in an emergency, some of the
casualties didn’t die at once during the accident, they died
in waiting for the medical rescue because they can not be
treated in time or the lack of medical supplies. There can
be a great decrease in death if give the casualties correct
treatment in the first time. In medical rescue, the
configuration of emergency medical supplies is not only
the first step but also the key step, so a good allocation for
emergency medical supplies can prompt medical
treatment to play a more positive role.
In the respect of emergency medical supplies, many
research achievements have been reached in our country.
Guang-lin Feng[1] and Wan-zhou Li did research in the
Emergency medical supplies are medical supplies
which are needed for emergency treatment when a large
scale emergency took place and made people injured. The
medical supplies have many types and cover a wide area,
the different medical supplies of different emergencies are
different, and the same emergency also need medical
supplies different in quantity and type when in different
stages and different degree. For this reason, the correct
analysis of the emergency disaster situation along with the
medical supplies it needs and the accurate allocation of
these medical supplies are very important.
A. Emergency medical supplies classification
Emergency medical supplies have many types, which
mainly include medical drugs, medical equipments,
disinfection pharmaceuticals, logistics supplies and so on.
According to different emergency medical supplies are
needed for different disasters , the roles emergency
medical supplies play are different, in order to reach a
good configuration effect, different ways to purchase,
store, transport and distribute should be adopted for
different emergency medical supplies, so it is very
necessary to classify the emergency medical supplies.
The emergency medical supplies can be classified in
many ways, they can be classified in the type of disaster,
the emergency of use, the use and using range, they can
also be classified based on different stages of an
emergency. According to the use of emergency medical
supplies, they are divided into several categories (shown
as Fig. 1):
B. Emergency material allocation efficiency analysis
a) Emergency medical supplies configuration index
analysis
The emergency medical supplies configuration index
system is divided into six primary indexes, each primary
index has secondary indexes, there are thirteen secondary
indexes in total[4]-[9] (as shown in Fig. 2)
b) Use rough sets[10]-[15] to construct weights on every
level of index
Choose sixteen types of emergency medical supplies,
then mark the score of every medical supplies in every
index by the experts’ scoring, at last get a form shown in
TABLE I by means of average score(set: C1-The
timeliness of materials preparation, C2-The timeliness of
materials transportation, C3-Quantity diversity, C4-Tpye
diversity, C5-Materials alternative, C6-The accuracy of
Supplies matching, C7-The continuity of materials supply,
C8-The economy of the procurement, C9-The economy of
storage, C10-The economy of materials transportation,
C11-The right amount of materials using C12- The quality
guarantee of medical supplies C13-The proper use of
medical supplies ; D-The score of every material)
The Timeliness
The timeliness of materials
preparation
The timeliness of materials
transportation
Quantity diversity
The
comprehensiveness
The
earthquake
emergency
medical
supplies
configuration
system
Type diversity
Materials Alternative
The veracity
The accuracy of Supplies matching
The continuity
The continuity of materials supply
The economy of the procurement
The economy of storage
The economy
The economy of materials
transportation
The right amount of materials using
The security
The quality guarantee of medical
supplies
The proper use of medical supplies
Fig. 2 the earthquake emergency medical supplies configuration system
The emergency
medical supplies
First-aid
Surgery
Epidemic
prevention
Others
Logistics
supplies
Fig. 1 the earthquake emergency medical supplies classification
Regard 90-100 as 1, 80-89 as 2, 70-79 as 3, 60-69 as
4, then cluster and discretize the data to get the decision
table shown as TABLE II.
The domain of discourse
U=（1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16）
C=(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11)
from TABLE II ,we can get：
U/ind
={(1,8,10),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(11),
(12),(13),(14),(15),(16) }
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(3,11),(4,9),(5),(6),(7),(10),
(11),(13),(14),(12,15),(16)}
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),
(12),(13),(14),(15),(16)}
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),
(12),(13),(14),(15),(16)}
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(3),(4,5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),
(12),(13),(14),(15),(16}
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(3,6,7),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),
(10,16),(11),(12),(13,14),(15)}
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),
(12),(13),(14),(15),(16)}
U/ind
={(1,8),(2),(
3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),(12),(13),(14),(15),(16)}
U/ind
={
(1,8),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),(12),(13),(14),(1
5),(16)}
U/ind
={
(1,8),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(9),(10),(11),(12),(13),(14),(1
5),(16)}
U/D={(1,2,4,7,11,12,16),(3,10,13,15),(5,6,8,9)}
U/C={(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9),(10),(11),(12),(13)
,(14),(15),(16)}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,5,6,7,10,13,14,16}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,3,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,4,5,6,7,9,11,12,15}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Pos
(D)={2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
PosC(D)={1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16}
Obtain: CD(C1)= c(D)- C-{C1}(D)=1﹣13/16=3/16;
CD(C2)=8/16; CD(C3)=2/16; CD(C4)=2/16;
CD(C5)=4/16; CD(C6)=7/16; CD(C7)=2/16;
C12, C13, and C11 are equivalent, so
CD(C9)=2/16; CD(C10)=2/16; CD(C11)= 2/16,
Because C8 and C7 are equivalent, so CD(C8)=2/16,
TABLE I
Domain of discourse
Eligible
materials
C1
87
83
90
87
82
90
93
87
83
93
96
92
78
70
96
90
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Evaluation index
C2
90
93
94
83
84
80
87
92
90
96
80
87
90
91
91
94
C3
83
76
84
73
76
80
80
83
70
84
88
85
93
95
87
83
C4
86
85
79
92
92
72
73
85
92
87
75
90
82
82
94
87
C5
80
83
78
81
68
78
79
81
83
83
71
84
88
80
83
84
C6
82
89
95
88
86
75
86
88
94
81
93
93
96
81
92
75
C7
88
82
96
82
82
92
94
86
85
89
97
91
90
94
95
80
C8
81
81
91
85
80
93
90
80
80
86
92
95
94
91
94
89
C9
82
78
87
86
81
90
83
84
74
88
81
90
92
91
90
78
C10
88
84
90
89
84
91
92
83
82
80
90
90
81
82
97
86
C11
94
92
82
90
91
82
85
92
93
95
82
81
93
90
84
90
C12
91
95
88
93
90
83
81
94
91
93
80
84
90
90
87
92
C13
95
90
88
97
90
81
84
91
90
90
83
80
95
93
88
95
D
84
87
94
83
72
75
88
79
76
92
85
89
95
87
93
86
TABLE II
Domain of discourse
Eligible materials
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
C1
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
3
3
1
1
C2
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
C3
2
3
2
3
3
2
2
2
3
2
2
2
1
1
2
2
C4
2
2
3
1
1
3
3
2
1
2
3
1
2
2
1
2
CD(C12)= CD(C13)=2/16.
Normalize: w1=0.075, w2=0.2, w3=0.05, w4=0.05,
w5=0.1, w6=0.175, w7=0.05, w8=0.05, w9=0.05, w10
=0.05, w11=0.05, w12=0.05, w13=0.05.
Assume that a represents the timeliness, b represents
the comprehensiveness, c represents the veracity, d
represents the continuity, e represents the economy, f
represents the security.
Get: wa=0.275, wb=0.2, wc=0.175, wd=0.05, we=0.2,
wf=0.1
See from the results above, in the emergency medical
supplies configuration system, the weight of the
C5
2
2
3
2
4
3
3
2
2
2
3
2
2
2
2
2
Evaluation index
C6
C7
2
2
2
2
1
1
2
2
2
2
3
1
2
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
3
2
C9
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
3
2
1
1
1
1
3
C10
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
2
C11
1
1
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
1
D
2
2
1
2
3
3
2
3
3
1
2
2
1
2
1
2
timeliness is the largest, the comprehensiveness and
economy are the second, the veracity is the third, and the
continuity is for the minimum weight.
III CASE ANALYSIS
A. Medical supplies configuration evaluation
Take the emergency medical supplies configuration
of West China Hospital in Wenchuan earthquake for
example, and divide the supplies into five types, A- firstaid, B-surgery, C-epidemic prevention, D-others and Elogistics supplies.
First-aid=A=
TABLE III
Materials
A
B
C
D
E
a
94.5
92.8
89.3
89.5
83.7
Index
c
85.2
88.6
80.4
82.5
84.2
b
87.3
82.2
83.7
78.4
84.6
d
83.8
78.2
72.3
73.6
70.9
e
85.6
84.7
88.5
89.7
90.6
f
93.4
90.1
92.6
91.8
96.2
=
;
Similarly, we can get :
Surgery=B=
TABLE IV
All kinds of materials evaluation scores ranking
Scores
ranking
A
89.0
1
B
87.3
2
Materials
C
85.9
4
=
D
85.5
5
E
86.0
3
In the basis of the actual situation of configuration at
that time, adopt the way of expert scoring, and then get
the form below(shown as TABLE III).
According to the weight of each index obtained
above, wa=0.275, wb=0.2, wc=0.175, wd=0.05, we=0.2,
wf=0.1, we can get the form shown as TABLE IV.
It’s thus clear that the emergency medical supplies
allocation efficiency of West China Hospital in Wenchuan
earthquake is higher, first-aid is the highest, surgery is the
second, others is relative minimum.
;
Epidemic prevention =C
=
=
;
Others=D=
B. Emergency medical supplies reclassification[8]
Divide the performance that the emergency medical
supplies performed under each index into highest(1),
higher(2) and general(3) three kinds of degree, and
accordingly reclassify the emergency medical supplies as
the first level, the second level and the third level, 20
experts grade the performance that the emergency medical
supplies performed under each index based on their
experience, a-the timeliness, b-the comprehensiveness, cthe veracity, d-the continuity, e-the economy, f- the
security, the data collection form is shown as TABLE V:
The weight of each index is known: wa=0.275,
wb=0.2, wc=0.175, wd=0.05, we=0.2, wf=0.1, there are:
=
;
Logistics supplies =E
=
=
;
So we can reclassify the five types of the emergency
medical supplies, results are shown as TABLE VI:
TABLE V
All kinds of emergency medical supplies index assessment form
index
1
a
b
c
d
e
f
18
15
10
12
8
16
2
A
2
2
8
5
4
2
3
1
0
3
2
3
8
2
16
12
7
15
6
18
2
B
3
6
10
5
6
1
3
1
2
3
0
8
1
Evaluation language
1
2
3
C
8
10
2
6
13
1
5
8
7
10
7
3
10
9
1
15
4
1
TABLE VI
Emergency medical supplies reclassification
Material
classification
Evaluation language
Reclassification
A
1
0.675
2
0.18
3
0.145
B
0.58875
0.26625
0.145
The first level
C
0.41375
0.465
0.12125
The second level
D
0.24875
0.305
0.44625
The third level
E
0.2125
0.2475
0.54
The third level
The first level
IV CONCLUSION
This paper has analyzed the system of emergency
medical supplies configuration systematacially, the
weight of each index in emergency medical supplies
allocation system has been obtained by rough sets. Based
on the weights, the emergency medical supplies
configuration of West China Hospital has been estimated
synthetically, which is known from the results. The
allocation efficiency of each emergency medical supplies
of West China Hospital in Wenchuan earthquake is
higher. Meanwhile, based on the weight of each index, the
five types of the emergency medical supplies are
reclassified as the first level, the second level and the third
level. Research shows that the allocation and reclassify of
the emergency medical supplies play an important role in
the work of medical emergency, and the research on
medical treatment resource allocation strategy can
contribute to the improvement of allocation efficiency of
the emergency medical supplies needed in Natural
disasters. The further studies will focus on the medical
supplies scheduling rules and strategy of single point to
multipoint.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is funded by the National Nature
Science Foundation of China (71131006; 71020107027;
71192197) and the Foxconn Technology Group’s Talent
Selection Research Program (11F81210101) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
in Sichuan University.
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