GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Life EMS Ambulance recently expanded and remodeled its control center in Grand Rapids. Among the many computers and phones, an Emergency Medical Dispatcher manages an artificial intelligence tool to predict where the next medical emergency may be.
It is called Predictive Dynamic Deployment. It is a map that uses historical data and real-time information to get an idea of where the next emergency will happen.
"It's eerily accurate," said Mark Meijer, president of Life EMS Ambulance. "We all have limited resources. It's a big geographic area; EMS covers about 5,000 square miles of West Michigan from a paramedic ambulance response. So, we need to be where the calls happen. The best we can do that, reduces the response time and improves our ability to get to a patient faster."
Life EMS Ambulance takes in more than 450,000 calls a year. That is about 1,250 calls daily. Emergency Medical Dispatchers coordinate with callers their medical emergency, ranging anywhere from a car accident to a cardiac arrest to delivering a newborn.
"We call that a zero-minute response time," said Meijer. "The care starts the minute we pick up the phone."
It is National Telecommunicators Week. 13 ON YOUR SIDE had a look inside the Life EMS Ambulance control center after the renovations.
Tuesday, Meijer also presented the Heartsaver Award to Nick Heinrich. He helped navigate a pediatric choking patient when he received a call from the patient's parents. Life EMS Ambulance said it was a positive outcome.
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