Revisiting the Newsvendor and Traveling Salesman in a Healthcare Disaster or Pandemic Response

Abstract

There are significant challenges to provide timely relief in healthcare disaster and pandemic response situations. The impact of these types of events risk large number of people to potentially fatal outcomes. A key element of providing timely relief is the distribution of critical medicines and supplies. Based on current literature, there appears to be a gap between simplistic solutions and complex optimization models. The goal of this paper is to provide a useful model that can be applied in time critical healthcare and pandemic situations.