Project description
Innovative system for emergency response
Delayed arrivals and long response times represent a critical issue for emergency medical services (EMS). EMS operators must assess emergencies in real-time and decide which vehicle arrangement is better and for which emergency case. The system presents high complexity that is aggravated by traffic, incident severity, multiple and simultaneous incidents, and different types of required ambulances and equipment. The EU-funded SECONDS project proposes an innovative, real-time proactive vehicle management system for EMS operators. The system is based on area incident forecasts and assessments of the response system's preparedness. It increases ambulance effectiveness by 30 %, resulting in shorter response times, faster patient delivery to the hospital and, as a result, lower healthcare costs and increased vehicle availability.
Objective
For Emergency Medical Services (EMS), late arrivals and long response times constitute losses in lives and higher hospitalization costs. 5 mins is the best response time to save more lives and 12 mins is the maximum threshold EMS estimate for an ambulance to be helpful. These times, however, are hard to meet (>50% emergencies do not even meet the latter). In EMS dispatch centers, operators must assess emergencies in real time, based on their best effort to decide which vehicle arrangement is the most adequate for each scenario. Speed is critical, so pre-positioning vehicles is the key to meet the required response time. The high complexity of the system produces uncertain demand and supply (incidents and vehicle availability), which gets worse due to traffic, incident severity, multiple/simultaneous incidents, and different types/sizes of ambulances and associated equipment.
SECONDS is an innovative, real-time vehicle management system for emergency dispatchers, maximizing coverage and reducing response time. It provides +35% ambulance arrivals below 12-min threshold time; it is able to manage simultaneous incidents in the same area; it forecasts locations with a higher emergency probability and provides predictive incident location, which means 25% less vehicle driving mileage, higher vehicle availability; faster patient delivery to hospital; less pollution. For EMS dispatch center operators, it will provide 2.5 faster response time, asset (vehicle + medical staff) usability management, reduced cost and crew overtime, as well as better decisions – less pressure on operators – and better monitoring. For citizens/persons in need, it will bring a higher survival rate (up to 14% mortality reduction) and richer experience – better care. SECONDS will bring our company international expansion, valuable IP assets, €24.6M profits over 5 years via subscriptions/consulting, a ROI of 844% and the creation of 59 additional qualified jobs.
Fields of science
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineemergency medicine
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencebig data
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learningdeep learning
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencecomputational intelligence
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
1105 BP AMSTERDAM
Netherlands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.