Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions
BACKGROUND: Fixed-wing air ambulances play an important role in healthcare in rural Iceland. More frequent use of helicopter ambulances has been suggested to shorten response times and increase equity in access to advanced emergency care. In finding optimal base locations, the objective is often eff...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:10621180 2023-12-03T10:24:43+01:00 Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions Gunnarsson, Björn Björnsdóttir, Kristrún María Dúason, Sveinbjörn Ingólfsson, Ármann 2023-11-01 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10621180/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37915061 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-023-01114-9 en eng BioMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10621180/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37915061 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13049-023-01114-9 © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med Original Research Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-023-01114-9 2023-11-05T02:17:09Z BACKGROUND: Fixed-wing air ambulances play an important role in healthcare in rural Iceland. More frequent use of helicopter ambulances has been suggested to shorten response times and increase equity in access to advanced emergency care. In finding optimal base locations, the objective is often efficiency—maximizing the number of individuals who can be reached within a given time. This approach benefits people in densely populated areas more than people living in remote areas and the solution is not necessarily fair. This study aimed to find efficient and fair helicopter ambulance base locations in Iceland. METHODS: We used high-resolution population and incident location data to estimate the service demand for helicopter ambulances, with possible base locations limited to twenty-one airports and landing strips around the country. Base locations were estimated using both the maximal covering location problem (MCLP) optimization model, which aimed for maximal coverage of demand, and the fringe sensitive location problem (FSLP) model, which also considered uncovered demand (i.e., beyond the response time threshold). We explored the percentage of the population and incidents covered by one to three helicopter bases within 45-, 60-, and 75-min response time thresholds, conditioned or not, on the single existing base located at Reykjavík Airport. This resulted in a total of eighteen combinations of conditions for each model. The models were implemented in R and solved using Gurobi. RESULTS: Model solutions for base locations differed between the demand datasets for two out of eighteen combinations, both with the lowest service standard. Base locations differed between the MCLP and FSLP models for one combination involving a single base, and for two combinations involving two bases. Three bases covered all or almost all demand with longer response time thresholds, and the models differed in four of six combinations. The two helicopter ambulance bases can possibly obtain 97% coverage within 60 min, with bases in ... Text Iceland Reykjavík Reykjavík PubMed Central (PMC) Reykjavík Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine 31 1 |
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Original Research Gunnarsson, Björn Björnsdóttir, Kristrún María Dúason, Sveinbjörn Ingólfsson, Ármann Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
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Original Research |
description |
BACKGROUND: Fixed-wing air ambulances play an important role in healthcare in rural Iceland. More frequent use of helicopter ambulances has been suggested to shorten response times and increase equity in access to advanced emergency care. In finding optimal base locations, the objective is often efficiency—maximizing the number of individuals who can be reached within a given time. This approach benefits people in densely populated areas more than people living in remote areas and the solution is not necessarily fair. This study aimed to find efficient and fair helicopter ambulance base locations in Iceland. METHODS: We used high-resolution population and incident location data to estimate the service demand for helicopter ambulances, with possible base locations limited to twenty-one airports and landing strips around the country. Base locations were estimated using both the maximal covering location problem (MCLP) optimization model, which aimed for maximal coverage of demand, and the fringe sensitive location problem (FSLP) model, which also considered uncovered demand (i.e., beyond the response time threshold). We explored the percentage of the population and incidents covered by one to three helicopter bases within 45-, 60-, and 75-min response time thresholds, conditioned or not, on the single existing base located at Reykjavík Airport. This resulted in a total of eighteen combinations of conditions for each model. The models were implemented in R and solved using Gurobi. RESULTS: Model solutions for base locations differed between the demand datasets for two out of eighteen combinations, both with the lowest service standard. Base locations differed between the MCLP and FSLP models for one combination involving a single base, and for two combinations involving two bases. Three bases covered all or almost all demand with longer response time thresholds, and the models differed in four of six combinations. The two helicopter ambulance bases can possibly obtain 97% coverage within 60 min, with bases in ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Gunnarsson, Björn Björnsdóttir, Kristrún María Dúason, Sveinbjörn Ingólfsson, Ármann |
author_facet |
Gunnarsson, Björn Björnsdóttir, Kristrún María Dúason, Sveinbjörn Ingólfsson, Ármann |
author_sort |
Gunnarsson, Björn |
title |
Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
title_short |
Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
title_full |
Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
title_fullStr |
Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
title_sort |
locating helicopter ambulance bases in iceland: efficient and fair solutions |
publisher |
BioMed Central |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10621180/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37915061 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-023-01114-9 |
geographic |
Reykjavík |
geographic_facet |
Reykjavík |
genre |
Iceland Reykjavík Reykjavík |
genre_facet |
Iceland Reykjavík Reykjavík |
op_source |
Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10621180/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37915061 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13049-023-01114-9 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-023-01114-9 |
container_title |
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine |
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31 |
container_issue |
1 |
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