Track: Healthcare Operations and Services

Abstract

The Emergency Medical Services Systems (EMS) plays an important role in healthcare management.  The alarming number of emergency cases resulting from natural and man-made disasters is experienced by any country.  In the Philippines, some organizations practice the EMS System, however, their average response time of 15 to 30 minutes falls below the international standard of 8 minutes.  This paper assesses the current performance of emergency ambulance service (EAS) providers in Quezon City.  Significant factors affecting their performance were identified using statistical tools. Moreover, proposed alternative solutions were evaluated in order for EAS providers attain the international standard of response time using the ArcGIS (Geographic Information System) software.  The results showed that the current performance of the public and private EAS providers exceeded their standard response and service times and they cannot reach 100% demand coverage using the 8-minute international standard of response. To address these inefficiencies, an optimal routing system was proposed by adding new stations so that performance measures are achieved. Moreover, policies and procedures were developed to attain a standardized communication system, work schedule, and dispatch method for emergency response action. The proposed solutions improved the current performance of both public and private EAS providers in Quezon City.

Keywords

Response Time, Service Time, Emergency Medical Service System, Location-Allocation Tool, ArcGIS Software