Heurísticas inteligentes para el problema de reubicación de vehículos de emergencias sanitarias.

[ES] El principal objetivo de los servicios de urgencias y emergencias extrahospitalarias es brindar una atención cualificada en el menor tiempo posible. Es esencial ubicar estratégicamente las bases donde se localizan los vehículos de emergencia, para poder cubrir el mayor número de puntos de demanda en un tiempo razonable. Aun en el caso de contar con la ubicación óptima de los vehículos, a medida que estos se mueven para atender emergencias, algunas zonas podrían quedarse sin cobertura, siendo difícil mantener un nivel de servicio adecuado. Con un mayor número de vehículos se podría resolver este problema, pero hay que tener en cuenta que esto implicaría una gran inversión inicial y unos costes operativos elevados, por ello, no es una opción conveniente. Una solución alternativa sería reubicar los vehículos disponibles para alcanzar la mayor cobertura posible. Obtener la solución óptima en un tiempo razonable no es viable para este problema. Por ello, en este trabajo se aborda el problema de reubicación de ambulancias mediante el diseño y desarrollo de herramientas heurísticas inteligentes. Se resuelve un caso real, del Servicio de Emergencias Sanitarias de la provincia de Valencia, con un previo análisis estadístico de los datos históricos de las emergencias, con la finalidad de obtener información relevante, que posteriormente se utiliza para desarrollar las heurísticas.[EN] The main objective of the emergency services and out-of-hospital emergencies is to provide qualified care in the shortest possible time. It is essential to strategically locate the bases where emergency vehicles are located in order to cover the greatest number of demand points in a reasonable time. Even in the case of having the optimal location of the vehicles, as they move to attend to emergencies, some areas could be left without coverage, making it difficult to maintain an adequate level of service. With a greater number of vehicles, this problem could be solved, but it must be considered that this would imply a large initial investment and high operating costs, therefore, it is not a suitable option. Relocating the available vehicles to achieve the highest possible coverage would be an alternative solution. Obtaining the optimal solution in a reasonable time is not feasible in this case. For this reason, this work addresses the problem of ambulance relocation through the design and development of intelligent heuristic tools. A real case is solved, from the Health Emergencies Service of the province of Valencia, with a previous statistical analysis of the historical data of the emergencies, in order to obtain relevant information, which is later used to develop the heuristics.Karpova Krylova, Y. (2020). Heurísticas inteligentes para el problema de reubicación de vehículos de emergencias sanitarias. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/15832

A mixed integer linear program for a real relocation problem of emergency medical vehicles in the province of Valencia

[EN] The rapid intervention of Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) when an emergency arises is of vital importance for the welfare of citizens. Currently, these Emergency Medical Vehicles (EMV) are located, in the province of Valencia, in certain logistical bases according to the criteria of those responsible for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS). However, it is not possible to cover the entire population of the province within the stipulated maximum times of 12 and 15 minutes (depending on whether it is an ALS or BLS, respectively). For this reason, a maximum coverage model is used to relocate the EMV bases in order to minimize the amount of uncovered population in the province. Thanks to the proposed model, the total coverage defect of the province's population is reduced by more than half compared to the current distribution.This work is part of the project submitted to the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI) in the 2021 call entitled iREVES (innovación en Reubicación de Vehículos de Emergencias Sanitarias): an intelligent decision-making tool. Part of the authors are supported by the Faculty of Business Administration and Management at Universitat Politècnica de València. This work is part of a Bachelor’s Degree Final Project awarded with a mention in Missions València 2030 and the second prize of CEMEX at Universitat Politècnica de València. Mention should also be made to all those responsible for the EMS from Comunitat Valenciana for providing all the necessary information and being willing to offer their help at all times.Vecina García, MÁ.; Villa Juliá, MF.; Vallada Regalado, E.; Karpova Krylova, Y. (2022). A mixed integer linear program for a real relocation problem of emergency medical vehicles in the province of Valencia. Journal of Applied Research in Technology & Engineering. 3(2):85-92. https://doi.org/10.4995/jarte.2022.16984OJS85923

Heuristic algorithms based on the isochron analysis for dynamic relocation of medical emergency vehicles

[EN] Among the wide range of medical services, prehospital health care is one of the most relevant, as it usually involves an emergency situation. The qualified medical team is dispatched to the scene of the incident as soon as possible. One of the most influential factors in response time depends on where the ambulances are stationed, however, when a medical vehicle is attending an emergency, it becomes unavailable for other calls. Increasing the ambulance fleet is a costly option that does not guarantee efficiency. An alternative solution is the relocation of available ambulances to increase the population covered by them. Obtaining the optimal solution in real time is not feasible for this problem. Therefore, this work addresses the problem of dynamic relocation of ambulances through the design and development of heuristic tools. The isochron overlap analysis defines possible scenarios that may occur when ambulances become unavailable for emergencies and determines the appropriate conditions to carry out the relocation of ambulances. Computational experiments are run using a benchmark of instances based on the characteristics of a real Emergency Medical Service. Based on the results of the study, we can conclude that the designed relocation algorithms perform better than if there was no relocation strategy.The authors are supported by Agència Valenciana de la Innovació (AVI), Spain under the project ireves (innovación en vehículos de emergencia sanitaria): una herramienta inteligente de decisión (No. INNACC/2021/26). This project has been partially financed with FEDER, Spain funds. Interested readers can visit http://ireves.upv.es. The authors are supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the project ``OPRES-Realistic Optimization in Problems in Public Health¿¿(No. PID2021-124975OB-I00), partially financed with FEDER funds. Part of the authors are supported by the Faculty of Business Administration and Management at Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain and Yulia Karpova is supported under the project Programa de Ayudas de Investigación y Desarrollo (PAID-01-21) de la Universitat Politècnica de València. Special thanks to Servicio de Atención Sanitaria a Urgencias Emergencias (SASUE) and to Servicios de Emergencias Sanitarias (SES) of the Comunitat Valenciana, and Department of Coordination of Medical Transport for the information and data provided. All authors have contributed to all sections and tasks performed in this article.Karpova-Krylova, Y.; Villa Juliá, MF.; Vallada Regalado, E.; Vecina, MÁ. (2023). Heuristic algorithms based on the isochron analysis for dynamic relocation of medical emergency vehicles. Expert Systems with Applications. 212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2022.11877321