Location and Allocation of Emergency Medical Services

Identifier

etd-04112016-152320

Degree

Master of Science in Industrial Engineering (MSIE)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

EMS systems coordinate the equipment, facilities, and dispatch of medical teams to 911 calls within a geographic region. The time required for an ambulance to arrive at a caller’s location is an important performance metric for measuring the effectiveness of an EMS system. The distribution of ambulances throughout a region influence the response time. Discrete event simulation was used to model the urban East Baton Rouge Parish (EBR), Louisiana EMS system to assess alternatives and determine the ideal geographic distribution of ambulances for reducing response time. The region was clustered into equal area grids with a demand node centered in each grid. Nodes were weighted by historical proportion of calls received from each grid. Travel times were determined from probability distributions of historical travel times for each path. Alternative scenarios consisted of adding up to two ambulances to the system at existing stations. Average response time, 90% fractile response time, and standard deviation of response time were used to compare alternatives to the baseline and select the best alternative for the 1-median and 2-median solutions. Using historical travel times was effective in modeling the ambulance response system. The best 1-median solution was to add an ambulance to station 6 which projected to reduce the Code 3 90% fractile response time to 11.09 minutes, just over the 11 minute goal set by EBR EMS and the best 2-median solution was to add ambulances to station 6 and to stations 15 which were projected to bring the Code 3 90% fractile response time to 10.85 minutes, below the 11 minute goal. The model was able to predict which hospitals would have the greatest impact from an ED closure, but the model needs to be expanded to include the entire parish area and account for trends in inter-arrival times and call volumes over the long term in order to make accurate time predictions about large changes to the EMS system.

Date

2016

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Secure the entire work for patent and/or proprietary purposes for a period of one year. Student has submitted appropriate documentation which states: During this period the copyright owner also agrees not to exercise her/his ownership rights, including public use in works, without prior authorization from LSU. At the end of the one year period, either we or LSU may request an automatic extension for one additional year. At the end of the one year secure period (or its extension, if such is requested), the work will be released for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Harvey, Craig

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.2222

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