Impact of Vehicular Networks on Emergency Medical Services in Urban Areas

Chun-Liang Lee, Chung-Yuan Huang, Tzu-Chien Hsiao, Chun-Yen Wu, Yaw-Chung Chen and I.-Cheng Wang
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Chun-Liang Lee: Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Chang Gung University, No. 259, Wen-Hwa 1st Road, Kwei-Shan, Tao-Yuan 33302, Taiwan
Chung-Yuan Huang: Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Chang Gung University, No. 259, Wen-Hwa 1st Road, Kwei-Shan, Tao-Yuan 33302, Taiwan
Tzu-Chien Hsiao: Department of Computer Science, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 University Road, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan
Chun-Yen Wu: Department of Computer Science, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 University Road, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan
Yaw-Chung Chen: Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 University Road, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan
I.-Cheng Wang: Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Chang Gung University, No. 259, Wen-Hwa 1st Road, Kwei-Shan, Tao-Yuan 33302, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-23

Abstract: The speed with which emergency personnel can provide emergency treatment is crucial to reducing death and disability among acute and critically ill patients. Unfortunately, the rapid development of cities and increased numbers of vehicles are preventing emergency vehicles from easily reaching locations where they are needed. A significant number of researchers are experimenting with vehicular networks to address this issue, but in most studies the focus has been on communication technologies and protocols, with few efforts to assess how network applications actually support emergency medical care. Our motivation was to search the literature for suggested methods for assisting emergency vehicles, and to use simulations to evaluate them. Our results and evidence-based studies were cross-referenced to assess each method in terms of cumulative survival ratio (CSR) gains for acute and critically ill patients. Simulation results indicate that traffic light preemption resulted in significant CSR increases of between 32.4% and 90.2%. Route guidance was found to increase CSRs from 14.1% to 57.8%, while path clearing increased CSRs by 15.5% or less. It is our hope that this data will support the efforts of emergency medical technicians, traffic managers, and policy makers.

Keywords: emergency medical services; cumulative survival ratio; vehicular ad hoc networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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