IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijisen/v46y2024i2p169-194.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A semi-Markov decision model for the optimal control of an emergency medical service system

Author

Listed:
  • Giannis A. Kechagias
  • Alexandros C. Diamantidis
  • Theodosis D. Dimitrakos

Abstract

A mathematical model for the analysis of an emergency medical service (EMS) system with a specific number of advanced life support units (ALS) and a specific number of basic life support (BLS) units is presented in this paper. The system admits incoming emergency calls which are divided into two classes: 1) urgent, high-priority calls for which the patient's life is potentially at risk; 2) less urgent low-priority calls. Under a suitable cost structure, the system is modelled using an appropriate Markov decision process in continuous time for which we seek a stationary policy that minimises a predefined optimality criterion for vehicle mixes over a set of candidate ambulance fleets. Based on this formulation, it is possible to implement standard Markov decision algorithms, such as the standard value-iteration algorithm and the standard policy-iteration algorithm. A sensitivity analysis of some model parameters is provided to examine their effect in the vehicle mix and in the cost of the system. An integer programming formulation is also provided for the corresponding location-allocation problem of the model. Numerical results are also presented for the examined problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Giannis A. Kechagias & Alexandros C. Diamantidis & Theodosis D. Dimitrakos, 2024. "A semi-Markov decision model for the optimal control of an emergency medical service system," International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 46(2), pages 169-194.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijisen:v:46:y:2024:i:2:p:169-194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=136414
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijisen:v:46:y:2024:i:2:p:169-194. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=188 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.