Emergency Medical Services

The challenge for departments and organizations that provide emergency medical services is getting trained personnel and medical equipment to emergency locations within standard response times [PDF].

The general standard response times for medical emergency calls are

• Four minutes for advanced life safety (ALS) emergencies
• Eight minutes for basic life safety (BLS) emergencies

Meeting these standards requires an analysis of historical call volume (What are the typical patterns for emergency medical calls historically by time of day and day of week?), the geography that must be covered, and the number of emergency medical services (EMS) units and personnel required to satisfy identified standards. Once an analysis has taken place and an emergency medical program is implemented, EMS resources must be monitored, assigned to incidents as they occur, and repositioned for optimum response coverage.

GIS technology is essential to meet the complex management challenge for emergency medical services programs. GIS supports EMS by

• Analyzing historical incidents to determine staffing and resource needs for EMS unit deployment
• Providing dynamic analysis of unit availability to determine optimum positioning of EMS units
• Providing a view of EMS unit locations and their response capability from their current location

Planning and Analysis

GIS provides the technology for creating a "posting plan" (preassigned EMS mobile locations) that efficiently covers EMS call demand for a jurisdiction. GIS displays where to place vehicles on the map for any given period of time based on historical event patterns. Staffing and unit requirements and dispatch needs can be quickly determined and viewed with GIS technology.

Operations Management

GIS can provide a common operating picture that shows unit locations using GPS and incidents as they are received, unit status, and historical high-demand areas that require better coverage. When units are assigned, GIS provides dispatch managers with a revised view and recommendation for new posting (positioning) of available units.

Tactical Operations

In-vehicle computer systems provide EMS units with a GIS map display showing current unit location and new incidents as they occur. As calls are received and the unit is dispatched, the incident location is displayed, the quickest route can be posted, and the route and map are turned to the direction of travel. If victim transport is required, GIS can analyze the appropriate medical treatment facility based on the type of injuries and display the most efficient route.

Solutions

ESRI software for EMS includes

• ArcInfo
• ArcView Network Analyst extension