title: Simulation and optimization models for emergency medical systems planning.
abstract: The authors address strategic planning problems for emergency medical systems (EMS). In particular, the three following critical decisions are considered: i) how many ambulances to deploy in a given territory at any given point in time, to meet the forecasted demand, yielding an appropriate response time; ii) when ambulances should be used for serving nonurgent requests and when they should better be kept idle for possible incoming urgent requests; iii) how to define an optimal mix of contracts for renting ambulances from private associations to meet the forecasted demand at minimum cost. In particular, analytical models for decision support, based on queuing theory, discrete-event simulation, and integer linear programming were presented. Computational experiments have been done on real data from the city of Milan, Italy.
authors: Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Energia Elettrica e dell'Informazione, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Bettinelli
authors: Dipartimento di Informatica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors: Roberto
authors: R
authors: Cordone
authors: CINECA, Bologna, Italy.
authors: Federico
authors: F
authors: Ficarelli
authors: Dipartimento di Informatica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors: Giovanni
authors: G
authors: Righini
mesh_terms: D000552:Ambulances; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004189:Disaster Planning; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017146:Models, Organizational; D010934:Planning Techniques