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Montreal, QC - The Corporation of Urgences santé (Urgences santé) was recently presented with an Award of Excellence at ESRI Canada's ninth ESRI Regional User Conference in Montreal. Alain Dombrowski, ESRI Canada Regional Manager for Quebec, presented the award in recognition of the Corporation's work to improve the delivery of emergency services by developing an application that enhances the data they use for ambulance routing. More than 200 people were on hand for the presentation to François Robitaille of the Corporation of Urgences santé.
Urgences santé is the provider of emergency pre-hospital services including ambulance transports for the cities of Montréal and Laval, Québec. With nearly 1300 employees and 160 vehicles Urgences santé responds on average to more than 900 calls per day and carries out more than 536 ambulance transports daily. Urgences santé is a pioneer in North America for using computer aided dispatch system for emergency ambulance routing. Since 1998, all ambulances have been equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Ambulances are tracked and their status is colour coded and displayed on a map. The point of origin of calls is automatically located and the system displays, in a split second, the most appropriate ambulance to answer the call effectively. The shortest path is calculated with the ArcGIS Network Analyst extension and then transmitted to a mobile computer in the ambulance. "GIS is fundamental to our operations, we have worked with the ESRI tools for more than eight years and they have largely influenced and improved the way we work," said François Robitaille, Geomatics Specialist, Urgences santé. "Consequently, we are very proud that ESRI Canada recognizes our efforts and it is with a great pleasure that we accept this award." Regular updating of the geographic and descriptive data is a vital process for Urgences santé. Obsolete or vague data can have major consequences, for instance the inability to locate a call or transmitting incorrect routes to ambulance technicians can mean the death of a citizen. In the past, updating the digital road network that Urgences santé uses for routing was carried out manually using ArcMap's standard editing tools. The procedure included more than one hundred steps and presented a high risk of errors. It was practically impossible to track the history of individual changes through the various updates. To maintain their data, Urgences santé combines its geographic and descriptive data with data from the cities of Laval and Montreal. Each supplier uses data structures and conventions which are adapted to their specific needs. Therefore, Urgences santé must carry out a series of operations to adequately integrate all data to its system. Urgences santé's IT department developed a digital road network synchronization module built on ArcObjects which allows for a substantial gain of productivity while increasing the degree of reliability of the operational database. 1. A reduction of the time required the integrate supplier data from more than one week to less than one day. "The digital road network synchronization module quickly proved to be of a great value for the operations of Urgences santé," said Mr. Dombrowksi. "It has made it possible for them to isolate recurring problems and to even identify those coming from their suppliers. The continuous data verification acts as a driving force that enables them to constantly improve their data." About ESRI Canada: Media Contacts: | |