TY - JOUR
T1 - A Deep Kernel Learning Framework for Probabilistic Spatiotemporal Forecasting of Emergency Medical Services Call Volume
AU - Peter Novak
AU - Jana Svoboda
JF - Journal of Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare Systems
JO - J. Artif. Intell. Healthc. Syst.
SN - 3149-8981
Y1 - 2024
VL - 3
IS - 2
SP - 89
N2 - Emergency medical services (EMS) systems face significant challenges in managing fluctuating call volumes, where sudden demand surges can delay response times and worsen outcomes for critical conditions such as cardiac arrest, trauma, and stroke. Accurate forecasting of EMS demand supports proactive ambulance deployment, improving survival rates and resource efficiency, yet traditional methods like ARIMA and exponential smoothing fail to capture nonlinear spatial, temporal, weather, and event-driven effects, and do not provide uncertainty estimates needed for operational decision-making. This paper proposes a conceptual framework based on deep kernel learning with Gaussian processes for spatiotemporal EMS demand forecasting. The model integrates deep neural networks for feature extraction with Gaussian processes for probabilistic inference, enabling both flexible nonlinear representation and uncertainty quantification. It combines temporal, spatial, weather, and event-based kernels to model complex patterns in EMS call volumes. The framework produces predictive mean estimates along with calibrated uncertainty intervals, capturing effects such as weather-driven medical incidents and large public events. This probabilistic output supports risk-aware ambulance allocation strategies that balance over- and under-resourcing. Overall, the proposed approach provides a unified, interpretable, and uncertainty-aware solution for EMS demand forecasting, with future work aimed at validation on real-world datasets and comparison with existing methods.
UR - https://cirpublications.com/n108063880
ER -