Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing Applications in Healthcare Management Science

Abstract

Healthcare inventory management is a complex task which contains critical decision phases. One of the efficient ways of healthcare inventory management is to classify inventory items into predefined categories in terms of their significant features. This chapter proposes a guideline to healthcare decision makers to implement appropriate inventory control methods. The proposed method combines Fuzzy AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process), TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and ABC (Always Better Control) analysis methods to determine the priority of inventory items. The corresponding method, which takes into account multiple criteria in the classification of inventory items, cope with the limits of the classical ABC method. It also helps to reduce the uncertainty in the inventory classification problem as the proposed method is based on the fuzzy logic approach. A real-life case study is conducted in a hospital laboratory to test the proposed method.