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Follow on Google News | Computing Power to Optimise the Mobile Emergency Care NetworkKarl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences computes the smartest distribution of emergency medical service stations
By: PR&D Sometimes every minute counts – especially in emergencies. An emergency doctor has to be on the scene no more than 15 to 20 minutes after an emergency call has been made. In urban conurbations this is easy to achieve with a small number of sizeable emergency medical stations – but not in sparsely populated areas. In order to be able to reach remote areas quickly, a suitable distribution of many smaller stations is important. A study recently published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics by Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences in Krems (KL Krems) shows the possibilities offered by excellent mathematical models, extensive computing power and state-of-the- GREATER REACH FROM FEWER MEDICAL STATIONS The study's author, Dr. Robert Fritze, himself an emergency doctor and scientist at KL Krems, described the background to the study, explaining that, "The current distribution of emergency physicians in Lower Austria is very good – almost 90 percent of the population can be reached within the allotted time from the existing 32 medical service stations. So what we were interested in was whether a practical computer model could make an intelligent contribution to difficult location decisions. The answer is a resounding 'yes'." In fact, the results of the study by Dr. Fritze from the Clinical Department for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at Krems University Hospital show that a different distribution of emergency medical service stations would even facilitate timely care for more than 95 percent of the population. If all existing locations were retained, this level of coverage could be achieved with only three additional stations. Assuming existing stations were redistributed, it could even be achieved with fewer than the current 32 stations. This result was achieved by adapting complex algorithms for computing special distribution problems to address the specific task in Lower Austria. For example, the team had to make sure that only whole-numbered results were possible. That's because half or quarter emergency stations could not exist in reality, even though they would be mathematically possible. This requirement was met with the use of a method called 'integer linear optimisation'. Dr. Fritze and his team also fed the computer model the latest geodata at a very high level of detail. "Our computations didn't just take the shortest route into consideration," THINKING IN THE BOX As the smallest spatial unit for the computations, all of Lower Austria was divided into more than 10,000 cells, each measuring 1 square kilometre. Millions of distribution patterns were then computed, in which emergency medical stations were virtually located at different places in different cells, where the accessibility of these places had to be provided by the road network. For each sample, the size of the population that could be reached within the allotted time was calculated and compared with previous results. After days of computations, the results were available. These can now be taken into account throughout Europe when future decisions need to be made on where to locate emergency medical stations. The study thus combines the field of computer science with the specific requirements of everyday emergency medicine. It impressively underpins the scientific focus of KL Krems, where the university's applied research connects numerous disciplines relevant to health policy Original publication: Combining spatial information and optimization for locating emergency medical service stations: A case study for Lower Austria. R. Fritze, A. Graser, M. Sinnl. International Journal of Medical Informatics 111(2018)24- Scientific Contact Dr. Robert Fritze Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine Universitätsklinikum Krems Karl Landsteiner University of Health Science Dr.-Karl-Dorrek- 3500 Krems M +43 699 192 843 15 E robert.fritze@ Karl Landsteiner University of Health Science Barbara M. Peutz Communications, PR & Marketing Dr.-Karl-Dorrek- 3500 Krems / Austria T +43 2732 72090 230 M +43 664 889 558 49 E barbara.peutz@ W http://www.kl.ac.at/ Copy Editing & Distribution PR&D – Public Relations for Research & Education Ira Paschinger Mariannengasse 8 1090 Vienna / Austria T +43 / 1 / 505 70 44 E paschinger@prd.at W http://www.prd.at/ End
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