The purpose of this research project is to determine the feasibility of merging an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) simulator with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in order to produce IEMS3 (Intelligent Emergency Medical Services Systems Simulator), a PC-based system which can be used for both addressing strategic plan-ning issues of EMS systems (e.g., system configuration; vehicle location) and the tactical issues concerned with vehicle dispatching, routing and re-routing in a dynamic manner. The simulator will be based on RURAESIM, a comprehensive computer simulation model developed by the School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh under funding from the Department of Transportation. The completed IEMS3 will provide planners and pre-hospital care managers with a decision aid to: l)capture and represent patient, vehicle and information flows in a well-organized manner; 2)identify, through simulation, both present and potential "bottlenecks" in the EMS process; 33analyze quantitatively the various alternatives for alleviating these "bottlenecks", and 4)by linking to a GIS and adding rule-based software. crests an advanced computer aided disoatchina svstem
Anticipated Results:Successful completion of Phases I and II of this project will result in a computer modeling and information system that can significantly improve EMS planning by evaluating and then presenting the projected effects and benefits which could resul3 from various changes to the emergence medical service system of interest. The IEMS Fill provide EMS managers with a sophisticated tool for addressing, through simulation, "what if"questions affecting these complex svstems.
