Decision on SIG-2026-0193

[MSOM Conference]

08-May-2026

Re: SIG-2026-0193, "Dual When It Matters: Dominance-Driven EMS Dispatch with Contextual Information"

SIG Day Decision: Reject

Dear Author (this is to ensure anonymity):

We received many excellent submissions for the Healthcare Operations Management SIG-Day Conference. Unfortunately, we could not accept all of them to be included in the program, and we are sorry to say that your paper was not accepted to the SIG-Day conference.

If you also submitted an extended abstract of your paper to the main MSOM Conference, a decision on that submission will be made separately.


Sincerely,

Healthcare Operations;SIG Co-Chairs

MSOM Healthcare Operations Management SIG-Day Co-Chair

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Referee: 1
Strengths SIG Only: An interesting and practical study in EMS dispatch by proposing a dominance-based approach to decide when a single ambulance is sufficient versus dispatching two units. A key strength is the focus on efficiently utilizing limited fleet resources while still minimizing response times, which is highly relevant in real-world settings. The idea of testing dominance of the primary path across multiple scenarios is intuitive and provides a clear decision rule. The use of contextual travel time uncertainty and the simulation based on Google Routes API adds practical value.

Referee: 2
Strengths SIG Only: The paper studies whether to dispatch a second ambulance in response to an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. This is a high-stakes operational decision context with important implications for patient outcomes and emergency response system efficiency.

The proposed policy sends a backup ambulance only when the optimistic time gap between the primary route and its best alternative exceeds a calibrated threshold. This policy is intuitive, interpretable, and easy to implement in practice.

The policy is evaluated using real-world data and shows promising performance.

Referee: 3
Strengths SIG Only: Please see the attached report.

Referee: 1
Limitations: However, there are several limitations. The literature review needs some work, as it is not entirely clear how the proposed contribution compares to existing work in robust optimization and EMS dispatch. The benchmarking is also limited, as the model is mainly compared to simple heuristics (region-based dispatch and Google ETAs), and stronger comparisons with established approaches in the literature are needed. For instance, it would be useful to consider a robust optimization framework using interval estimates rather than point estimates. Additionally, the restriction to at most two ambulances seems somewhat arbitrary, treating the number of dispatches as a decision variable with fleet capacity constraints could make the model more general.

Referee: 2
Limitations: There are some important modeling limitations. First, it is not clear whether dispatching a backup ambulance is a common strategy in practice. Given that ambulances are a scarce resource, the model does not consider system-wide capacity constraints and the potential negative externalities associated with sending a second ambulance, such as reduced coverage elsewhere. In addition, the model appears to consider only two depots, whereas in practice emergency response systems often involve multiple depots and more complex network structures.

The paper is very notation-heavy and at times difficult to follow. It reads largely as a collection of technical and numerical results. I feel the managerial insights could be more clearly articulated and better connected to the analytical and numerical findings.

Referee: 3
Limitations: Please see the attached report.

Referee: 1

Comments to the Author
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Referee: 2

Comments to the Author
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Referee: 3

Comments to the Author
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