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Using a genetic algorithm to solve a non-linear location allocation problem for specialised children’s ambulances in England and Wales

Kung, E; Seaton, SE; Ramnarayan, P; Pagel, C; (2021) Using a genetic algorithm to solve a non-linear location allocation problem for specialised children’s ambulances in England and Wales. Health Systems 10.1080/20476965.2021.1908176. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

Since 1997, special paediatric intensive care retrieval teams (PICRTs) based in 11 locations across England and Wales have been used to transport sick children from district general hospitals to one of 24 paediatric intensive care units. We develop a location allocation optimisation framework to help inform decisions on the optimal number of locations for each PICRT, where those locations should be, which local hospital each location serves and how many teams should station each location. Our framework allows for stochastic journey times, differential weights for each journey leg and incorporates queuing theory by considering the time spent waiting for a PICRT to become available. We examine the average waiting time and the average time to bedside under different number of operational PICRT stations, different number of teams per station and different levels of demand. We show that consolidating the teams into fewer stations for higher availability leads to better performance.

Type: Article
Title: Using a genetic algorithm to solve a non-linear location allocation problem for specialised children’s ambulances in England and Wales
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/20476965.2021.1908176
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1080/20476965.2021.1908176
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Keywords: OR in health services, Location-allocation analysis, Emergency medical service, Integer programming, Genetic algorithms
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Infection, Immunity and Inflammation Dept
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Mathematics
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Mathematics > Clinical Operational Research Unit
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10126247
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