- Transportation
- Case Study
CATIS Foundation: Artificial Intelligence supporting first-aid
The CATIS Foundation is an important non-profit organisation established in the early 1980s with the mission of providing the Bologna community with a professional emergency and ambulance transport service.
A reality born out of cooperation and voluntary work, strongly intertwined with the identity of the territory: its state-of-the-art assisted medical mobility and out-of-hospital emergency services have been supporting the citizens of Bologna and its province for over 30 years by providing vehicles, equipment and personnel specialised in rescue techniques.
For citizens, the reference is the well-known telephone number 051/505050, which they can count on to receive a fundamental and excellent service that also takes into account “the protection of the dignity and ethical rights of the person”. An NGO that has solid roots in history, but also a vision projected towards the future and innovation.
With the Covid-19 emergency , the Foundation's effort focused on helping the people affected by the virus by enhancing its services, means and personnel available to the hospitals.
It is easy to imagine the complexity of managing its resources in such a critical context.
In line with its characteristic far-sightedness, the CATIS Foundation has therefore chosen to equip itself with a state-of-the-art tool for the management and planning of people and ambulances: Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology that will ensure that this organisation will be even more effective and responsive in support of out-of-hospital health and emergency mobility in the Bologna AUSL territory, and to anticipate critical situations as soon as the first signs of attention appear.
The specific need is to optimise and automate staff rostering, taking into account specific constraints such as contractual characteristics, holidays and leave, and of course sudden requests to change shifts due to illness and personal needs. All this always guaranteeing the very high level of service offered to the community.
With its solution, Var Group Data Science enables the Foundation to introduce within its processes of managing the transport services for hospitals and individuals, a highly innovative and efficient tool which makes use of Artificial Intelligence algorithms to improve further the quality of the service provided.
The application is in fact capable of optimising the daily planning of the shifts combining the presences and skills of the crew with the ambulances, observing the constraints of the system.
Var Group Data Science has provided 3 Artificial Intelligence modules which will integrate information and constraints related to:
Needs on the part of the AUSL of Bologna and the Policlinico S. Orsola Malpighi of Bologna of the out-of-hospital health and emergency mobility services of the territory
Staff shifts
Individual characteristics of personnel (professional profile but also physicality, in order to better balance the crews that have to transport people on stretchers, for example)
One of the 3 AI modules will optimise the monthly shift planning of individuals by considering contractual constraints but also individual needs, such as holidays and leave.
A second module will intervene for optimal coverage of the need of the Bologna AUSL territory: once the need is known, the system will organise the presences for the whole of the next month associating crews with ambulances. The determination of the crew for each individual vehicle must take into account constraints that today are only in the minds of planners (e.g. the pairing of persons of the same height to carry stretchers safely for the patient).
The third AI module makes a further step forward: on the basis of the availability of vehicles and their condition (MOT test, sanitisation etc.), it will automatically combine the ambulances available with the planning of the need. In this way, at the start of the shift the crew will already know which ambulance has been assigned to them, and the matching of vehicles to personnel will no longer require any manual action, saving time, resources and costs.
To ensure maximum flexibility, the system developed by Var Group Data Science also allows manual changes to be made if necessary.
It is an ambitious and revolutionary project, but developed in a smart way: to give the Foundation also the best result in terms of usability. Var Group Data Science has in fact developed a customised application for the best user experience.
An intelligent and effective tool with which the CATIS Foundation can optimally manage the entire planning for the provision of the health mobility service to the province of Bologna.
The choice of Fondazione CATIS to rely on Artificial Intelligence is more unique than rare in the panorama of NGOs: a courageous and radical choice that marks a step forward in this sector and that will allow the organisation to carry out its activities at an even higher level of quality and efficiency, for the benefit of the entire community.
A reality born out of cooperation and voluntary work, strongly intertwined with the identity of the territory: its state-of-the-art assisted medical mobility and out-of-hospital emergency services have been supporting the citizens of Bologna and its province for over 30 years by providing vehicles, equipment and personnel specialised in rescue techniques.
For citizens, the reference is the well-known telephone number 051/505050, which they can count on to receive a fundamental and excellent service that also takes into account “the protection of the dignity and ethical rights of the person”. An NGO that has solid roots in history, but also a vision projected towards the future and innovation.
With the Covid-19 emergency , the Foundation's effort focused on helping the people affected by the virus by enhancing its services, means and personnel available to the hospitals.
It is easy to imagine the complexity of managing its resources in such a critical context.
In line with its characteristic far-sightedness, the CATIS Foundation has therefore chosen to equip itself with a state-of-the-art tool for the management and planning of people and ambulances: Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology that will ensure that this organisation will be even more effective and responsive in support of out-of-hospital health and emergency mobility in the Bologna AUSL territory, and to anticipate critical situations as soon as the first signs of attention appear.
The specific need is to optimise and automate staff rostering, taking into account specific constraints such as contractual characteristics, holidays and leave, and of course sudden requests to change shifts due to illness and personal needs. All this always guaranteeing the very high level of service offered to the community.
With its solution, Var Group Data Science enables the Foundation to introduce within its processes of managing the transport services for hospitals and individuals, a highly innovative and efficient tool which makes use of Artificial Intelligence algorithms to improve further the quality of the service provided.
The application is in fact capable of optimising the daily planning of the shifts combining the presences and skills of the crew with the ambulances, observing the constraints of the system.
Var Group Data Science has provided 3 Artificial Intelligence modules which will integrate information and constraints related to:
Needs on the part of the AUSL of Bologna and the Policlinico S. Orsola Malpighi of Bologna of the out-of-hospital health and emergency mobility services of the territory
Staff shifts
Individual characteristics of personnel (professional profile but also physicality, in order to better balance the crews that have to transport people on stretchers, for example)
One of the 3 AI modules will optimise the monthly shift planning of individuals by considering contractual constraints but also individual needs, such as holidays and leave.
A second module will intervene for optimal coverage of the need of the Bologna AUSL territory: once the need is known, the system will organise the presences for the whole of the next month associating crews with ambulances. The determination of the crew for each individual vehicle must take into account constraints that today are only in the minds of planners (e.g. the pairing of persons of the same height to carry stretchers safely for the patient).
The third AI module makes a further step forward: on the basis of the availability of vehicles and their condition (MOT test, sanitisation etc.), it will automatically combine the ambulances available with the planning of the need. In this way, at the start of the shift the crew will already know which ambulance has been assigned to them, and the matching of vehicles to personnel will no longer require any manual action, saving time, resources and costs.
To ensure maximum flexibility, the system developed by Var Group Data Science also allows manual changes to be made if necessary.
It is an ambitious and revolutionary project, but developed in a smart way: to give the Foundation also the best result in terms of usability. Var Group Data Science has in fact developed a customised application for the best user experience.
An intelligent and effective tool with which the CATIS Foundation can optimally manage the entire planning for the provision of the health mobility service to the province of Bologna.
The choice of Fondazione CATIS to rely on Artificial Intelligence is more unique than rare in the panorama of NGOs: a courageous and radical choice that marks a step forward in this sector and that will allow the organisation to carry out its activities at an even higher level of quality and efficiency, for the benefit of the entire community.