Emergency order allocation of e-medical supplies due to the disruptive events of the healthcare crisis

•Emergency operations lessons from disruptive events of healthcare crisis.•Provides an emergency order allocation algorithm of e-medical homecare essentials (HCEs).•Proposed approximate algorithm effective for optimizing supply-distribution of e-medical HCEs.•Demonstrated the application of the proposed model using real-world data.•A min. of 94% and max. of 98% availability of e-medical HCEs could be ensured using our proposed algorithm during a disruptive event. The availability of electronic (e-medical) homecare essentials, such as thermometers, oximeters, and oxygen concentrators during the peaks of the pandemic coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has been witnessed as critical in saving the lives of people across the world. This paper presents a supply order allocation strategy of e-medical homecare essentials (HCEs) in a multi-supplier environment by a distributor while ensuring sufficient and timely availability for emergency consumption during pandemic peaks. The results, based on the actual demand data of HCEs obtained from a regional HCE distributor during the pandemic peak of the second wave in India, i.e. April-May 2021, suggest that a minimum (maximum) average of 94% (98%) availability of e-medical HCEs respectively at pharmacies could be achieved during the peak demand period using the proposed emergency order allocation algorithm in this study. Conclusively, the analysis of this study could generate insightful implications for emergency operations decisions in the HCEs supply-distribution channel.