Improving Interhospital Medical Patient Transportation in Morocco

Abstract

Healthcare facilities are nowadays facing several challenges in terms of quality of care, costs, and performance. Collaboration with stakeholders is a promising way to overcome these challenges. In Morocco, healthcare access and continuity of care remain difficult due, among others, to the various stakeholders involved and the lack of ambulances for extra-hospital and interhospital medical patient transportation (MPT). In this chapter, the aim was to explore collaboration in healthcare supply chain to improve the availability of ambulances for interhospital MPT (transfers). For this purpose, an overview of the MPT system in Morocco was presented while highlighting its main issues. Then, a case study of three hospitals in Casablanca City was analyzed employing a collaborative approach. It consisted in forecasting transfer requests for next periods based on past data, and redistributing the ambulances of the three hospitals according to the forecasts. Findings attest to the variability in demand in the three hospitals and therefore the need for a dynamic allocation of ambulances.