System analysis methods in emergency systems

This paper investigates what traditional operations research methods might best be used to analysis a state trauma system composed of a finite number of trauma centers. Optimization techniques in the operation research community have been categorized or binned into a handful of generalized groupings. While not all of these are a good fit for emergency systems, some might provide clues or techniques useful in the development of decision-making tools or evaluative systems for larger more complex trauma systems. This paper investigates the history, theory, select variants of the vehicle routing systems. This effort provide a suitable background to determine if optimization techniques used by operations researchers in routing analysis can be applied to or manipulated to help improve performance of trauma care in case of a significant disaster.