News and blog

Paramedic Chiefs Conference, Canada

From the 3rd to the 5th June 2015, ORH will be exhibiting at the Paramedic Chiefs Conference at Niagara Falls. The conference is being held at the Fallsview Casino Resort where we look forward to welcoming delegates to stand 19 to discuss how ORH can help emergency medical services with their resource planning and estate strategy.
The Paramedic Chiefs of Canada is a national forum for information gathering, policy development, and coordinated action by the leadership of Canada’s EMS systems. More details on the conference program can be found here.

ORH attending Desert Southwest Expo

ORH is pleased to be exhibiting at the 2015 Desert Southwest Fire & EMS Leadership Conference, hosted by the Arizona Fire Chiefs Association in Glendale, AZ .  The trade show takes place on Wednesday March 25 and is the largest fire and EMS expo in the southwest United States.  Please visit us at Booth BD 04 to discuss how ORH can support fire departments and emergency medical services in their planning. Click here for more information.

ORH Enhances Fire & Rescue NSW’s Dynamic Cover Tool

ORH’s DCT has been operating successfully in the Sydney and Newcastle Control Rooms for a year and a half.  It is currently being enhanced to provide a number of new features including remote viewing of the live DCT display by Operational Commanders and access to previous historical profiles of cover (eg, to assist in retrospective audit).  Based on the experience of DCT use during the NSW bushfires in the summer of 2013/14, ‘spate condition’ parameters will now drive the DCT display when appliance availability falls to low levels.

ORH undertaking Non-Emergency Patient Transport (NEPT) Capacity Review across Metro New South Wales

ORH has been commissioned by NSW Health to undertake a capacity review of NEPT across the metropolitan areas of the State.  The booking of NEPT was centralised during 2014, centrally allocating resources previously provided by Local Health Districts and the Ambulance Service.  ORH is undertaking an analysis of the current service profile and using simulation modelling techniques to identify optimal resource deployments to meet varying NEPT demand profiles effectively and efficiently.

LGA Fire Conference 2015

ORH is pleased to announce it will be sponsoring this year’s LGA Fire Conference in Gateshead on 10th and 11th March.

In addition to exhibiting at the event, we will be presenting a lunchtime session on Tuesday – Using the DCT to manage fire resource deployment in New South Wales during the October 2013 bushfires.  The session will discuss how ORH’s Dynamic Cover Tool was used by FRNSW to provide a high level of confidence in deployment decisions during this major emergency.  A case study surrounding this work is available here.

The conference will provide a platform to discuss the key issues currently facing the UK fire service.  Please visit our stand to find out how ORH can help FRSs with the decision making processes in addressing such issues.

ORH Secures British Columbia Ambulance Service Review

ORH has been commissioned by British Columbia Emergency Health Services to undertake a major review of Metro and Air Ambulance provision in the British Columbia Ambulance Service (BCAS), the largest provider of emergency medical services in Canada.  The review is being undertaken between March and July 2015 and is aimed at providing BCAS with information to move forward with effective and efficient service delivery to meet changing demands.

AFAC Conference – ORH present the DCT with FRNSW

In the first week of September, ORH attended the annual AFAC conference in Wellington, NZ.  The theme of the conference was ‘learning from adversity’ and ORH’s presentation formed part of the urban impact assessment stream.  Further details on the conference are available here.

In tandem with Mark Brown, Assistant Commissioner at Fire and Rescue New South Wales, we demonstrated how the Dynamic Cover Tool has become a key part of the Service’s control room operations.  Focusing on the October 2013 bushfires, the presentation explained how the DCT provided a high level of confidence in decisions regarding resource deployment during this major emergency.

ORH commences fire project in United States

In August, consultants from ORH visited Arizona to commence a fire station relocation study for the Tempe Fire, Medical and Rescue Department.  The study marks ORH’s first contract within the US and will be undertaken in collaboration with two other companies: Fire & Rescue Solutions and HDA Architects.  ORH will undertake analysis of the current service profile and project future demand trends associated with significant building developments in the City of Tempe before modelling deployments of apparatus to improve service delivery.

ORH to exhibit and present at AFAC Conference next week

AFAC 2014, Australasia’s largest emergency services conference, takes place in Wellington next week.  ORH will be co-presenting a paper with Fire and Rescue New South Wales on the use of the Dynamic Cover Tool, focusing on its importance during the bushfires of October 2013.  A case study on this project is available here.  In addition, ORH will be exhibiting at the trade show – come and visit us at Booth 15 for a demonstration of the DCT and a chance to win a Kindle Paperwhite.

ORH Calculates Updated Rurality Indicator values for English Ambulance Trusts

ORH is working with South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust in quantifying the relationship between CCG rurality and the costs and standards of service provision.  In previous ORH work into rural service provision for the emergency services, an indicator was developed that performed better than simple population density in differentiating costs of provision for normalised service standards – the ‘weighted geometric mean of ward-based population density’.  As part of the ORH work for SWASFT, this value was calculated for all ten Trusts using 2011 Census data, and the results are shown on the map.

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