Author: <span>ORH Team</span>

ORH review will ‘renew and revitalise’ emergency ambulance services in Metro Vancouver

ORH completed a major review of emergency ambulance cover in the Metro Operations Area in British Columbia in Autumn 2015. British Columbia Emergency Health Services released an associated Action Plan on 5th February 2016, stating that ‘the review gives valuable information to achieve our goal of a more patient-centred, sustainable ambulance service’.The review projected a 42.5% increase in call volumes over six years, and identified a range of efficiency and investment measures to keep pace with the growing demand and to improve response standards, particularly to higher acuity patients.

Read the BCEHS Action plan announcement here.

Simcoe Paramedic Services Deployment Review

ORH recently completed a Comprehensive Deployment Review for the County of Simcoe Paramedic Services (CSPS) in Ontario, Canada. CSPS employs over 300 staff who respond out of 17 stations and satellite points to a population of 465,000. The review involved the development of a 10-year operational master plan and the provision of a simulation modelling tool for CSPS to use in-house. ORH determined that, moving forward with the optimal 23-site configuration, a 38% increase in vehicle hours would be required to maintain current performance levels by 2024. Modelling showed that the recommended set of station locations would allow staff and vehicle resources to be used more efficiently. The full case study can be read here.

ORH Awarded First Contract in Sweden

We are very pleased to have commenced a service review for the Greater Stockholm Fire Brigade (Storstockholms brandförsvar); this project marks ORH’s first study in Sweden. The Greater Stockholm Fire Brigade has 740 employees, 15 fire stations and 9 rescue corps and serves 1.2 million people in the Greater Stockholm area. The study will analyse the levels of incident demand and response performance in recent years. Modelling will then be undertaken to assess coverage provided by pumping and aerial appliances.

Tempe Fire Station Location Study

In 2015, ORH completed its first contract in the USA for Tempe Fire Medical Rescue Department (TFMRD) in Arizona. The overall objective of the study was to evaluate the City’s distribution of fire stations. Given projected growth in the City and the increased demand for EMS responses, the study projected forward the number of incidents to ensure that the recommended solution was future-proof. At the completion of the study, the final report was presented to the City Council and the recommendations were approved. The full case study can be read here.

OR EURO2015 Conference

ORH recently attended and presented at the OR EURO2015 conference, organised by the European Association of Operational Research Societies in conjunction with the UK OR Society.  The biennial conference, hosted this year at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, is a chance for leading OR academics and practitioners from around the world to get together to exchange ideas and discuss the latest advances in operational research techniques.  ORH consultants, Jon Mobbs and Andrew Cooper, presented case studies on work undertaken for the East of England Ambulance Service and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. Links to these case studies can be found here:
Clinical capacity planning – review and software support for East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust
Efficiency Savings for the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority
For further information on the conference, visit the OR EURO2015 website.

Budget Cuts and Fire Station Closures

ORH has nearly 30 years of experience gained from working with fire departments and EMS providers around the world, and we therefore understand the need for greater resilience and flexibility, often in the context of significant constraints on finance and resources.  As an example of this work, an article published in the June issue of FireRescue Magazine details the support which ORH provided to London Fire Brigade when the service was faced with the need to make significant efficiency savings while maintaining performance.This article, written by Catherine Levin, who was deputy head of community safety for the London Fire Brigade until November 2012, can be viewed here on the Firefighter Nation website.

Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Conference, Las Vegas

ORH was pleased to sponsor the Metro Fire Chiefs Conference for the first time this year. The conference in Las Vegas was an excellent platform from which to discuss issues within the fire sector, and the educational sessions proved to be very informative. Throughout the conference, the term big data was applied within several areas, and it was clear that using statistics from a variety of sources can help fire departments in their decision making.  In particular, data surrounding incident trends, local risks, populations and demographic factors are all of great importance.ORH uses these datasets, combined with incident and response data from CAD, not only to analyse the current position and historical patterns, but also to build optimisation and simulation models which can be used to consider potential changes to operations in great detail. ORH looks forward to working with more fire services in the US to assist them with analysis and modelling in order to evaluate the current level of achievement against NFPA 1710 standards and subsequently how this would be affected by a range of factors.

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.

© Copyright ORH All rights reserved.