Reorganization of an Emergency Medical System in a Mixed Urban-Rural Area

L’udmila Jánošíková (), Peter Jankovič, Marek Kvet, Gaston Ivanov, Jakub Holod and Imrich Berta
Additional contact information
L’udmila Jánošíková: Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Žilina, Univerzitná 1, 010 26 Žilina, Slovakia
Peter Jankovič: Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Žilina, Univerzitná 1, 010 26 Žilina, Slovakia
Marek Kvet: Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Žilina, Univerzitná 1, 010 26 Žilina, Slovakia
Gaston Ivanov: EMS Command and Control Centre of the Slovak Republic, Trnavská Cesta 8/A, 820 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Jakub Holod: EMS Command and Control Centre of the Slovak Republic, Trnavská Cesta 8/A, 820 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Imrich Berta: EMS Command and Control Centre of the Slovak Republic, Trnavská Cesta 8/A, 820 05 Bratislava, Slovakia

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-17

Abstract: The reorganization of an emergency medical system means that we look for new locations of ambulance stations with the aim of improving the accessibility of the service. We applied two tools that are well known in the operations research community, namely mathematical programming, and computer simulation. Using the hierarchical pq -median model, we proposed optimal locations of the stations throughout the country and within large towns. Several solutions have been calculated that differ in the number of stations that are supposed to be relocated to new positions. The locations proposed by the mathematical programming model were evaluated via computer simulation. The approach was demonstrated under the conditions of the Slovak Republic using real historical data on ambulance dispatches. We have concluded that (i) the distribution of the stations proposed by the hierarchical pq -median model overcomes the current distribution; the performance of the system has significantly improved even if only 10% of the stations are relocated to new municipalities; (ii) the variant that relocates 40% of the stations is a reasonable compromise between the benefits and induced costs; (iii) optimizing station locations in big towns can significantly improve the local as well as the nationwide performance indicators; the response times in two regional capitals has reduced by more than 4 min.

Keywords: emergency medical service; ambulance location; response time; coverage; computer simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12369/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12369/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12369-:d:928280

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().