The fundamental responsibilities of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) systems are to provide urgent medical care, such as pre-hospital care, and to transport the patient to the hospital if needed. The agility and efficiency of EMS systems are major public concerns. Since the EMS process involved is fundamentally a transportation process, the Lean Transportation approach is a viable option for improving Emergency Medical Service (EMS) operations performance. The identification of waste during the ambulance cycle time is the basis for designing an operations improvement strategy. The scheme utilized uses modified versions of the Transportation Value Stream Map (TVSM) and The Operational Vehicle Effectiveness (TOVE) Index. Thus, availability, performance and quality wastes are identified to define the improvement strategy. This study describes the efforts of the Mexican Red Cross institution located in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, México to reduce ambulance response time using the Lean Transportation approach.
A geospatial - time analysis, the application of real time routing devices, a double coverage mathematical model and the improvement of administrative and dispatching procedures are the main initiatives to reduce the response time.
A pilot test for the selected strategy was defined as the first step before its definitive implementation. After two weeks of the test, the response time has decreased and 85% of the emergency calls have been less than ten minutes.
The application of the suggested scheme based on the elimination of transportation wastes and the use of geospatial-time analysis and the double coverage mathematical model has been successful to define ambulance deployment strategies for reducing ambulance response times.