London Ambulance Service Case Study

London Ambulance Service Case Study

London Ambulance Service Case Study

Possible solutions offered in the LAS CAD system

LAS Overview

The foremost target of the London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Dispatch (LASCAD) task was to automate numerous of the human-intensive methods of manual dispatch systems affiliated with ambulance services in the UK. The foremost rationale conveyed for such computerization was normally that several problems lived with the manual CAD systems. Most such problems associated to the time-consuming and error-prone environment of undertakings such as: identification of the accurate position of an occurrence, the personal action of paper types, and sustaining up-to-date vehicle rank information.

The rudimentary functionality of the proposed LASCAD system was as follows: British Telecom (BT) operators would path all 999 calls in relative to medical emergencies as a issue of usual to LAS head agency (HQ) in Waterloo. 18 HQ 'receivers' were then anticipated to record on the system the title, phone number and address of the caller, and the title, place travelled to address and short minutia of the patient. This information would then be conveyed over a localized locality mesh to a locator. The system would pinpoint the patient's position on a chart brandish of localities inside London. The system was anticipated to supervise relentlessly the position of every ambulance via wireless notes conveyed by each vehicle every 13 seconds. The system would then work out the closest ambulance to the patient.

Experienced ambulance dispatchers were coordinated into groups founded on three zones (south, north-west and north-east). Ambulance dispatchers would be suggested minutia of the three closest ambulances by the system and the approximated time each would require to come to the scene. The dispatcher would select an ambulance and drive persevering minutia to a little fatal computer display established on the dashboard of the ambulance. The crew would then be anticipated to affirm that it was on its way. If the chosen ambulance were in an ambulance depot then the dispatch note would be obtained on the position printer. The ambulance crew would habitually be anticipated to accept a message. The system would mechanically attentive HQ of any ambulance where no acknowledgement was made a pursue up note would then be dispatched from HQ. The system would notice from each vehicle's position notes if an ambulance was heading in the incorrect direction. The system would then attentive controllers. Further notes would notify HQ when the ambulance crew had reached, when it was on its way to a clinic and when it was free again.

The LASCAD system was constructed as an event-based system utilising a rule-based set about in interaction with a geographical information system (GIS). The system was constructed by a little Aldershot founded programs dwelling called Systems Options utilising their own GIS programs (WINGS) running under Microsoft Windows. The GIS broadcast with Datatrak's self-acting vehicle following system. The system ran on a sequence of mesh PCs and document severs provided by Apricot.

 

Factors Contributed to Such a Disaster

The producing investigation described that neither the CAD ...