Explaining kills the joke but I understood the humor here works that the viewpoint is very salient on private goods and very blind to important public goods. This “improvement” would probably be detrimental to the reliability of patient transfer but from the strategically chosen viewpoint the proof doesn’t have any missteps (atleast locally).
If one were superserious about time from call to ambulanced arrival you could have ambulances scattered separately across the town so that the mean distance from takeoff to accident scene is low no matter where it happens. The downside of this is upkeeping the first responders in many locations with less synergy with other care professionals. And some function of ambulances can be getting medical knowledge and attention to the scene fast rather than the patient to the hospital fast (it is hard to get a specialist to hop on board if EMTs and doctors are not neighbours). However in this kind of scheme after the alert drive the ambulance probably wants to eventually get back to its “parking spot”. This hospital to upkeep station leg would be more usable for secondary uses and would be more decoupled from the alert drive. I would probably keep the principle that healthcare alerts get priority even over civilian task in progress. That is the ambulance can and will kick the taxi passenger out on the spot to the street to go serve patients. This principle would probably make it way less attractive as a taxi replacement.
One could argue that US style arrangement is already too taxi-like. If people opt too hard to use their own cars to avoid getting billed for ambulance that is directly proportional to the costs that can be a downgrade compared to how stably and quickly things would be done if we cared for health only. Another model is to set a low constant fee that is somewhat more than ordinary traffic to deter people not using the service for mere convenience, but minor enough that for actual medical need it doesn’t become a use deterrent. 100 vs 1000. But I guess that can already be shadowed by people opting to not treat stuff as they feel they can not afford the actual care. But might be have been used to think about it in a context where society has the will to provide universal assistance to keep people alive (with voices like “Why I should be forced to pay for Xs life?” not having too much popularity).
If one were superserious about time from call to ambulanced arrival you could have ambulances scattered separately across the town so that the mean distance from takeoff to accident scene is low no matter where it happens.
Hatzalah and Magen David Adam in Israel actually works this way. They have volunteer first responders throughout the populace, and whenever a call goes out they’ll radio the nearest ones to get to the scene as soon as possible. First responders usually arrive within a matter of minutes—I personally know of at least 3 within a 5 minute walk of me.
Getting an ambulance to the scene for actually transporting the patient takes longer, as these are more centralised.
Explaining kills the joke but I understood the humor here works that the viewpoint is very salient on private goods and very blind to important public goods. This “improvement” would probably be detrimental to the reliability of patient transfer but from the strategically chosen viewpoint the proof doesn’t have any missteps (atleast locally).
If one were superserious about time from call to ambulanced arrival you could have ambulances scattered separately across the town so that the mean distance from takeoff to accident scene is low no matter where it happens. The downside of this is upkeeping the first responders in many locations with less synergy with other care professionals. And some function of ambulances can be getting medical knowledge and attention to the scene fast rather than the patient to the hospital fast (it is hard to get a specialist to hop on board if EMTs and doctors are not neighbours). However in this kind of scheme after the alert drive the ambulance probably wants to eventually get back to its “parking spot”. This hospital to upkeep station leg would be more usable for secondary uses and would be more decoupled from the alert drive. I would probably keep the principle that healthcare alerts get priority even over civilian task in progress. That is the ambulance can and will kick the taxi passenger out on the spot to the street to go serve patients. This principle would probably make it way less attractive as a taxi replacement.
One could argue that US style arrangement is already too taxi-like. If people opt too hard to use their own cars to avoid getting billed for ambulance that is directly proportional to the costs that can be a downgrade compared to how stably and quickly things would be done if we cared for health only. Another model is to set a low constant fee that is somewhat more than ordinary traffic to deter people not using the service for mere convenience, but minor enough that for actual medical need it doesn’t become a use deterrent. 100 vs 1000. But I guess that can already be shadowed by people opting to not treat stuff as they feel they can not afford the actual care. But might be have been used to think about it in a context where society has the will to provide universal assistance to keep people alive (with voices like “Why I should be forced to pay for Xs life?” not having too much popularity).
Hatzalah and Magen David Adam in Israel actually works this way. They have volunteer first responders throughout the populace, and whenever a call goes out they’ll radio the nearest ones to get to the scene as soon as possible. First responders usually arrive within a matter of minutes—I personally know of at least 3 within a 5 minute walk of me.
Getting an ambulance to the scene for actually transporting the patient takes longer, as these are more centralised.