Finding the best health center location in Zahedan, Iran by using FAHP

Abstract

With urban growth and development, necessary urban and regional planning information has risen and become more complex. Extensive network of urban facilities, distribution and population density, land use and many cases like this add to such complexity of planning, leaving no option except for using GIS  to collect such data and process them in the form of new regional and urban planning. Here, we intend to take advantage of FAHP for the ranking of health centers in Zahedan, Iran. Since some criteria are qualitative and others are quantitative, this method which is capable of analyzing both objective and subjective assessment measures is beneficial is used. Due to high volume of FAHP calculations, Excel and Matlab software packages were administered for the process. As the results show, Bou Ali, Social Welfare, Khatam, and Emam Ali hospitals ranked first to fourth, respectively. Also, Nabi Akram Hospital ranked by far 5th. Eventually, based on experts` opinions, assessment and establishment of two hospitals are proposed in the north part of Zahedan in order to have better density of hospitals in Zahedan, Iran.