Operations Management in Emergency Medical Services: Response Time in a Brazilian Mobile Emergency Care Service

摘要

Response time can be considered as a crucial indicator in research involving transport. This indicator usually appears associated with SCM, integrating processes related to the product design and its consequent delivery as part of operations management. This concept may be adequate for the management of EMS operations: response time is defined as the interval between receiving a telephone call at an EMS agency and the arrival of an ambulance and a team at the location of an incident and is a valid indicator for evaluating the effectiveness of the EMS. The objective of this study was to analyze the response time in the EMS called SAMU 192 Southwest of Paraná, a Brazilian EMS agency. From the concepts provided by the literature, this research was able to identify limitations in the internal processes, ICT structure and information quality that must support decision making for ambulance dispatch in SAMU 192 Southwest of Paraná. This set of constraints compromises not only the time taken to respond to emergency calls, but the responsiveness of the EMS as a whole. Further research should be conducted following the steps described in detail in the methodology. Thus, it is a work in progress and presents the perspective for additional research.