EMS Response: How long is too long?

[dcnytrauma buff]

In small town's and city's across the nation where people rely on the Volunteers to save the lives of Family members or themselves time is the issue!
How long is too long? in a suburban area 4 - 7 minutes is a standard but were volunteers often come from home to the station and then to the scene the time often becomes 10 - 15 min. And what if the weather is bad, or there is a lot of traffic? 15 - 20 min. Must there always be a $ price to pay to save lives?
Now what about if the people don't have the proper or any address markings on the homes, are the EMS personal to suffer with the family's anger when EMS can't find the scene?
I am a Volunteer in a area that has both paid services, but is predominitly volunteer and in the areas where the paid services are, they have contracts with the local towns. the towns have set response standards such as 3 - 5 minutes from time of dispatch to on scene. One local paid service by me has taken up to 15 - 20 min. to respond to 40% of thier calls, and yet nothing is done because the whole contract is politicly motivated. Is this right? NO! but what are we to do wait untill one or several of the politicains family members die? It almost seems that way.

[sgt128]

I think that overall, nationwide, response times are improving for both volunteer and paid EMS services. The concept of a paramedic-engine, controversial as it is, allows pts to have someone with EMS experience to their bedside in minutes.
In my area, we have just had problems with bad policies, which we are trying to remedy. The one that comes to mind is that if the station only had a BLS crew and an ALS call came out, we would have to wait till response check (4 minutes) for an ALS provider to show up. We are working to change that, but the idea of having people that can do basic skills waiting in the Ambo for ALS, was just bad.
Improve policies, improve training, and never let up in the desire to perform quicker, better EMS. Never sacrifice better service for the clock though.

[FSRIZZIO]

Our situation is like this...we are an all volunteer BLS rated Fire/ EMS service covering about 35 square miles. Ground ALS units are 8-10 miles away, an Airevac copter is 25 miles away. State rules say we have to have an 8 min. response time( the Ambulance leaves the station) although we get it out in 2-3 minutes. Our dispatch has setup protocols with the local services that automatically dispatch ALS units for certain calls. We get their, start the routine, if we're too far out we wait for the helicopter,
if we need to go flat out we cancel the chopper and get a ground ALS unit en route. We load and go, meet them on the way and hand off as needed. BLS calls we handle. Just get the right people out of the chute for the right situations, distances can't be helped much unless you recognize a problem area, setup a substation and recruit for that area.
It's been pretty successful for several years.
Be Safe, Frank

[BURNSEMS]

As we all Know a Cardiac Arrest Victim has only 4-6 min, and it is strongly suggested that those Depts that Utilize A.L.S. with A.E.D. Capabilities reach the Pt within 8 min for the best Chance of Cardioversion with Defibrilation,, However we also Know that in Rural America that may be pushing it just a Little howevere I am trying something in our area that may help us in Locateing Residence or County Rds in a Faster Manner.Our Dept has recieved a Grant to Purchase 3 Mobile G.P.S. Units, upon reciept of the G.P.S Units we will start going to County Roads in our area and Entering the Road Number and Other info so when we are dispatched we enter the County Rd number or Rd Name and the G.P.S.will give us Directions and Benchmark those County Roads without Signs as our county does not get in a hurry to replace Signs, I am not sure How or If it will Help but any thing seems better than waisting time trying to find the area we are dispatched to, If any body currently utilizes this or something simimlar Let me know how it works.

[Dalmation90]

I have heard of the GPSs being used to give the medical choppers LZ coordinates, which seems like a really good idea to me!

[phyrngn]

To add to BURNSEMS' excellent idea, I have a little far-fetched (at least for now) idea of my own...there are currently internet based GPS locating systems that you can have function off of your existing radio system. When a location update is needed, a signal is sent, and within 15 seconds, you have a pinpoint of the closest unit. If the radio is off, it sends no signal, thus the unit is out of service. Now...here's my ideeerr....let me know what you think...

My volunteer department protects a rural area of around 87 square miles out of three stations. We have approximately 48 members, with about 20 of those active. We operate an ALS ambulance, but our code save rate is nonexistent due to travel times. If we purchased 10 AED's at a total cost of $35,000 (hopefully with a grant of some sort), and outfit 10 firefighter's vehicles with existing radios and this GPS AVL stuff on the web (probably another 10 grand or so, my numbers could be off here), we can cover the district pretty well. If a cardiac call comes in, the dispatch center (which has internet already), can take 15 seconds to pinpont the closest two or three firefighters and have them respond directly to the scene. For a SCA patient, this might help....

[BURNSEMS]

Here is What we have done so far, we found some neat Topo Softwear Called Topo USA, it cost about 150.00, we purchased a Lap Top and have aquired an G.P.S. Tracking antenna to add to the Lap Top, we have purchased GPS Transmitters for about 500.00 ea and added one to each GPS unit in the vehicles, useing the Lap Top and Topo Program we have entered this info on Roads into the Lap Top and now we can Down Load it into our County C.A.D Program as well as Track our Vehicles and or Personel, Our Search & Rescue Team has also recived this program and GPS transmitter set up from Kenwood the Complete set up for that was less than 8.000.00 and it allows us to track the progress of our SAR dogs as well, I had not thought about inputting Locations of Responders but That is a great Idea as well as Dry Hydrants Ponds ect, WOW we could do alot with this GREAT IDEA,,,need to put more thought into how to keep it user friendly or make it Firefighter proof any ideas let me Know.

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Here today for a Safer Tomorrow

[George Wendt, CFI]

As I stated in reference to another post on this board, it will never cease to amaze me that people are willing to pay full-time people to pick up their garbage and sweep their streets, but they refuse to pay them to save their lives or put out their fires. I don't know where volly response times are improving, but it's not in North Jersey. I am near a radio most days and it will take 2-4 dispatches on average to get a bus out, often times going to mutual aid. In suburban areas, it's not traffic or directions that's the problem, it's not having enough people to volunteer and refusing to admit the system will not work like it did in 1963. Pay people to do these jobs (municipal or county employees, not scabs) and the response time issue will improve overnight.