A decision-support system for ambulance management: A case study of the Portuguese EMS

Abstract

This paper presents a decision-support system (DSS) named ambulance management tool (AMT), which was developed to support the decision-making process in the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) context. We focus on the operational level of decision by considering ambulances’ dispatching and relocation tasks. A Geographic Information System (GIS) is embedded in the AMT to help the EMS managers in the decision-making process. It allows the visualization on the map of the EMS features (e.g., hospitals, bases), emergencies’ and ambulances’ location. The AMT includes two optimization approaches to solve the dispatching and relocation problems: a mathematical model and a heuristic. We present the Portuguese EMS as a case study focusing on the EMS operation in the Lisbon area, where dispatching and relocation decisions are currently handmade tasks. Real life features such as multiple ambulance and emergency types and the ambulances’ working shifts are considered.