MODELLING OF A PRE-HOSPITAL EMERGENCY CARE FLOW PROCESS  USING TIMED COLOURED PETRI NETS

R. A. Ganiyu; O. O. Okediran; E. O. Omidiora; C. A. Oyeleye; M. B. Abdulsalam

R. A. Ganiyu
O. O. Okediran
E. O. Omidiora
C. A. Oyeleye
M. B. Abdulsalam

Keywords: Pre-hospital, Timed Coloured Petri Nets, Emergency, Network, Ambulance

Abstract

Pre-hospital emergency care service is a major gateway to the Accident and Emergency Department that determines the rate of quality emergency service in hospitals. In this paper, Timed Coloured Petri Nets (TCPN) formalism is employed to model a pre-hospital emergency care flow process which is characterized by ambulance localization and emergency call responses using Osun State Emergency Management Ambulance Service (O’ambulance) as a case study. The developed TCPN model consists of Next Arrival Call (NAC) and Process Emergency Call (PEC) modules. The NAC module abstracted the emergency calls that were received by one (1) call receiver agent being utilized while the PEC module abstracts the operation (services) carried out in the units. The developed TCPN model was simulated using Coloured Petri Nets (CPN) tools while its validation was explored by comparing the simulated and actual rescue team average response time and turn-around times of the rescue teams in operation at the considered case study. The simulation results of the developed TCPN model yielded maximum Average Waiting Times (AWT) of 1.65 and 0.35 minutes using one and two emergency call receiver agents, respectively. Also, the simulation results showed that 7.05, 26.17 and 35.13 minutes were recorded as minimum values for Rescue team Average Response Time (RART), Rescue team Turn-around Time in case of non-critical (RTTNC) and Rescue team Turn-around Time Critical (RTTC), respectively. Similarly, the simulation results showed that RART, RTTNC and RTTC yielded maximum values of 15, 34 and 41.62 minutes, respectively. Statistically, there were no significant differences between the simulated and the real number of patients entering the health centre at 5% level. This gave a confirmation that the developed TCPN model accurately described the pre-hospital emergency care flow process under study. The developed TCPN model could serve as a referential model for studying and improving pre-hospital emergency care flow process in a named ambulance centre.