North Korea is conducting research into dispatching ambulances more quickly as it seeks to develop a faster and more effective emergency response system.
An article titled “An Approximate Queuing Model for Ambulance Disposition” was published in Kim Il Sung University’s academic journal (Issue 4, Volume 68, 2022), which is available on the university’s website.
“An important issue in improving the quality of emergency medical service is increasing the emergency resuscitation rate through the rational disposition of ambulances. We propose the approximate queuing model for ambulance disposition in order to minimize the average response time of the emergency medical system,” the article said.
The article explained that previously studied emergency response methods presented practical challenges for deciding the number and destination of ambulances to be dispatched when requests for assistance arrive from several locations at once.
The article said that if the proposed theory were put into practice, “several ambulances could be assigned to a single location.”
“We should consider cases in which the service times for aid requests differ between zones,” the article argued.
North Korea reportedly does not have an emergency response system akin to the “119” hotline used in South Korea. North Korean hospitals typically dispatch an ambulance when a patient makes a call. But because hospitals do not have many ambulances, they have trouble responding when emergency situations simultaneously arise in several locations.
This article’s research into effective ambulance disposition methods appears to be aimed at resolving practical issues of this sort.
Indeed, North Korea has made continuing efforts to improve its emergency response system.
“Medical treatment and prevention institutions in Pyongyang, including the Pyongyang Medical College Hospital, the three general hospitals, the Sosong District hospital and the Puksae Clinic in Moran District, acquired considerable experience while adopting an emergency medical care command system over the past year,” reported the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, on Feb. 29.
“This year, we are working on realistic projects to enable the emergency medical care command system to function more effectively at medical and treatment institutions in Pyongyang and to establish a command system at the provincial emergency aid headquarters.
“Researchers at the Information Technology Institute at the High-Tech Development Center at Kim Il Sung University are collaborating on creative solutions to technological questions that have been raised during the introduction and expansion of programs in each province in order to realistically upgrade our emergency medical aid command system, which is called ‘Rescue 1.0,’” the newspaper explained.
In short, researchers at Kim Il Sung University are supplementing and improving the Rescue 1.0 system.
Notably, recent North Korean academic articles have included research about adding the fastest way to reach locations that are not accessible by the roads displayed in North Korea’s online geographic information system.
North Korea could incorporate these research results into an upgraded version of its emergency medical care system.
Relatedly, the same academic journal at Kim Il Sung University published an article titled “Classification and Production of Building Data in Network Fire Alarms and Firefighting Systems Based on 3D Building Models.” The research in this article seeks to use three-dimensional building models to make fire alarms and firefighting systems more effective.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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