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.