Improving Patient Emergency Transfer in Hospital Networks by Route Optimization with Genetic Algorithms

In Peru, the road traffic problem is one of the biggest problems that affects drivers, firefighters, and emergency medical services, which every minute lost can become the loss of patients’ lives. This study proposes the use of a genetic algorithm to determine the most efficient route from the local area of an emergency accident attendance to the nearest health center. The proposed methodology as based on the development of a genetic algorithm that incorporates standard genetic operators specifically adapted to the problem of finding the shortest path. The results obtained were that the genetic algorithm was able to identify the shortest path compared to other algorithms, such as Dijkstra. However, it was observed that the execution time of the genetic algorithm is relatively high, which limits its viability for this type of problem.