Open this publication in new window or tab >>2015 (English)In: International Journal of Emergency Services, ISSN 2047-0894, E-ISSN 2047-0908, Vol. 4, no 2, p. 177-193Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to analyse costs and benefits from new collaborations in daily emergency response and to demonstrate how cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can be used for evaluating effects from these kinds of collaborations.
Design/methodology/approach
– CBA is used to evaluate two collaborations. The cases are: security officers that respond to fire and rescue service (FRS) calls; and home care nurses that assist the FRSs when they respond to urgent medical calls. Interviews, public documents and incident reports have been used as sources of data.
Findings
– Most costs are relatively straightforward to estimate. More difficult to estimate are the turn-out costs, including the services that cannot be performed when the new actors take on new assignments. One important benefit from these kinds of collaborations is reduced response time. Other benefits include increased situational awareness and improved preventive work in Case 1, as well as improved working conditions for the traditional resources and increased medical competence in Case 2. The analysis indicate that the case with the security officers most likely was socially beneficial, while the case with the home care nurses at the time of the study was not.
Originality/value
– The authors provide a thorough description and analysis of two interesting new ways of performing daily emergency response. Furthermore, the authors depict how CBA can be used to structure the analysis and evaluation of new initiatives in emergence services and how it can be used for identifying improvement potential. The authors also identify and discuss what is needed in terms of documentation as well as research, for it to be possible to improve the quantitative analysis of these kinds of initiatives
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2015
Keywords
Cost-benefit analysis, emergency services, first responders, fire and rescue services, economic evaluation, cost-efficiency
National Category
Communication Studies Transport Systems and Logistics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-115798 (URN)10.1108/IJES-01-2015-0002 (DOI)000214675000003 ()
Funder
Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency
Note
The status of this article was previously Manuscript.
2015-03-202015-03-202020-09-18Bibliographically approved