A Model for Supply-Chain Decisions for Resource Sharing with an Application to Ventilator Allocation to Combat COVID-19

Sanjay Mehrotra; Hamed Rahimian; Masoud Barah; Fengqiao Luo; Karolina Schantz

This modeling framework can be used to develop master plans that will allocate part of the ventilator inventory here-and-now, while allocating and reallocating the available ventilators in the future. The modeling framework incorporates conditions under which part of the historically available ventilator inventory is used for non-COVID-19 patients, who also present themselves for treatment along with COVID-19 patients. Thus, only a fraction of the historical ventilator inventory is available to treat COVID-19 patients. The remaining demand needs are met by allocation and re-allocation of available ventilators from FEMA and availability of additional ventilators through planned production. FEMA is assumed as the central agency that coordinates state-to-state ventilator sharing. The availability of inventory from a state for re-allocation incorporates a certain risk-aversion parameter. We present results while performing a what-if analysis under realistically generated demand scenarios using available ventilator demand data and ventilator availability data for different US states. An online planning tool is also developed and made available for use at https://covid-19.iems.northwestern.edu [9] .