An emergency system is everything between a person needing help and that person receiving care, from the 911 call to the hospital. ODS is an open framework for designing, paying for, and measuring that system. It gives the people responsible for a system shared terms and a method that starts from three questions:
- What is the system optimized for?
- Is the system financially sustainable?
- Is the system achieving its goals?
ODS draws on established practice from other fields (systems thinking and the value chain from strategy, net present value and breakeven from finance, multitask incentive theory from economics) and applies it to emergency response, which has too often been reasoned about in fragments. It works within the standards a system already answers to and does not require any particular delivery model or product.
Who it's for#
Anyone responsible for an emergency system, under any delivery model:
- Fire-based services
- Private and commercial ambulance services
- Third-service and municipal agencies
- Hospital-based services
- Volunteer and combination systems
- Mobile integrated health and community paramedicine programs
- The oversight bodies that regulate them
ODS does not argue that one delivery model is correct. Every one of them is reasoned about, financed, and measured with the same structure. That is what lets a community see whether its system is sound.
The pages#
The pages are ordered the way you would reason through a system: theory first, followed by the method in the order you would execute it, then the recommended economic model, and finally the reference desk.
Theory
- Foundations What ODS stands on: the subsystems, readiness and response, the three parties, and its positions.
- System Structure The subsystems and the regulator, the value chain, integration and anti-fragmentation.
Method
- The Decision-Making Rubric The precedence order requirements bind in, from Legal to Budget, and how ODS operates inside it.
- Financial Sustainability The five-step cost benefit method, and where optimal production is set.
- The Deployment Plan Building a schedule and posting plan, including fatigue management and assignment techniques.
- Measurement & the Score Measuring readiness and response, scope-of-control accountability, response time as an input, and the optimal deployment score.
Economic model
Reference
Stewardship#
ODS is openly licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0. It was originated by Brandt VX, LLC, which maintains it as primary contributor.