A resource-based decision support tool for emergency response management

In an emergency event, the efficient and effective management of medical resources reduces response times and better meets the patient's needs. However, the heterogeneity of types of resources (e.g., crews and expertise levels, vehicles, hospital capacity) and needs of patients (e.g., trauma status and type, location) makes efficient management of resources a very challenging task. In an effort to improve the management of medical resources during emergencies, this work designs and proposes a decision support tool that can be used for efficient real-time resource allocation. First, a network model is derived to capture the resources' flow. Thereafter, a mathematical program is formulated so as to allow optimization of the resources' allocation, and an online algorithmic implementation is provided to enable real-time execution within, for example, a computer-aided decision support system. Extensive simulations are also conducted under various scenario settings to experiment with the proposed tool and to demonstrate the potentially achievable efficiency gains.