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Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons

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Theses and Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2021

Medical evacuation

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering

The Impact Of Triage Classification Errors On Military Medical Evacuation System Performance, Emily S. Graves Mar 2021

The Impact Of Triage Classification Errors On Military Medical Evacuation System Performance, Emily S. Graves

Theses and Dissertations

In a deployed environment, evacuation requests of injured personnel are serviced by multiple forms of evacuation including medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) and casualty evacuation (CASEVAC). This thesis focuses on the optimal dispatching policy for MEDEVAC units when triage classification errors and blood transfusion kits are considered. A discounted, infinite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) model is formulated to analyze the MEDEVAC dispatching problem and determine the optimal policy based on the status of the MEDEVAC units in the system, the priority level of incoming requests, and the locations from which requests originate. A notional, representational scenario based in Azerbaijan is utilized to …


Examining How Standby Assets Impact Optimal Dispatching Decisions Within A Military Medical Evacuation System Via A Markov Decision Process Model, Kylie Wooten Mar 2021

Examining How Standby Assets Impact Optimal Dispatching Decisions Within A Military Medical Evacuation System Via A Markov Decision Process Model, Kylie Wooten

Theses and Dissertations

The Army medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) system ensures proper medical treatment is readily available to wounded soldiers on the battlefield. The objective of this research is to determine which MEDEVAC unit to task to an incoming 9-line MEDEVAC request and where to station a single standby unit to maximize patient survivability. A discounted, infinite-horizon continuous-time Markov decision process model is formulated to examine this problem. We design, develop, and test an approximate dynamic programming (ADP) technique that leverages a least squares policy evaluation value function approximation scheme within an approximate policy iteration algorithmic framework to solve practical-sized problem instances. A computational …