Mike McEvoy, EMS Coordinator
Saratoga County
33 Anchor Drive · Waterford, NY 12188-1148
Important Dispatch Change Planned
TO: All Saratoga County Ambulance Corps
DATE: October 21, 2002
At the October 2002 meeting of the EMS Council, average
response times were discussed. It is
clearly the intent of all EMS agencies in the County to respond as quickly as
possible when called. To assure that
calls do not go unanswered, the Council enacted a Mutual Aid Plan in September
1995. One element of this plan was a
10-minute maximum time from receipt of a call until an ambulance is
enroute. This “roll over” time was
picked out of thin air without the benefit of statistical data and, once put in
effect, was quickly changed to 12 minutes to accommodate response times
actually experienced.
Much has changed since 1995. We now have actual response time data compiled by the NYS Health
Department from ambulance PCR’s. Annual
reports from these data demonstrate a continued reduction in average ambulance
response times on the order of 1 to 2 minutes per year in Saratoga County. The most recent data available (from 1999)
show an average ambulance response time in Saratoga County of 9.75 minutes for
all emergency calls and 8.35 minutes for cardiac arrest calls. This average response time is clearly faster
than the current mutual aid “roll over” time of 12 minutes.
In an effort to better serve the public and more closely
match our dispatch protocols to actual performance of our EMS system, the EMS
Council plans to lower the mutual aid “roll over” time to 10 minutes, effective
January 1, 2003. The reactivation point
will also change from 6 minutes to 5 minutes.
Data show that most calls are already answered in less than
10 minutes. Corps however, will need
time to review and revise policies and procedures to reflect a 10-minute mutual
aid “roll over” point. To provide
everyone with a period to review the impact of this change on their agency, we
will delay implementation until midnight January 1st, 2003.
As with the present Mutual Aid Plan, there will be nothing
to stop an ambulance from responding to a call, even after it has been mutual
aided. The closest available ambulance
should be the ambulance that responds.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact EMS
Coordinator Mike McEvoy.