Maximizing resource efficiency in rural prehospital emergency medical services through call frequency analysis

Rural prehospital emergency medical services are often lacking when compared with their urban counterparts in terms of resources and co-ordinated resource use: can only employ important resources, such as paramedics, during limited shifts. This project demonstrates a method for determining the most effective use of these limited resources in a rural Red Cross ambulance service in Guápiles, Costa Rica. In this com-munity, paramedic services are only available six days a week for twelve hours. Emergency call frequency was mapped using 20 months of traf-fic accident data and after establishing that traffic accident frequency was statistically dependent on the time of day, polynomial models of the data were generated. The model functions were integrated and the re-sults were tested for accuracy. Integrals were calculated, and the results were reported to the Guápiles Red Cross committee to achieve an im-proved service. Methods such as this can be applied to any emergency response service