Optimization of health facility locations in Osh City, Kyrgyzstan

Basic information regarding location of existing facilities, their accessibility and development trends, in relation to socio-economic structure of a city is needed in order to prepare its developmental plan. Re-location of any service may not be feasible economically, but location-allocation models can be used to identify new potential locations. This study is an attempt to simulate new potential locations and evaluate the feasibility of optimization models for planning additional health facility in the Osh city. The result of the study shows the potential of the p-median approach for optimization of the location of various public services. The contribution of GIS to optimization techniques is mainly its use as a method for data gathering and visualization of the result. These two technologies can be fully integrated to provide a powerful tool for spatial decision support.