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Comprehensive Assessment of Emergency Medical Services 22 DRAFT REPORT and 911/Communications Center Operations Study Factors impacting response time include of course the distance that must be covered, but also specific and/or unique area characteristics such as road conditions, geography, and development density. Factors influencing the quality of the response have to do with not only the time it takes to get to the scene of the emergency but also the information communicated to the responding service unit, the skill of the personnel responding, and the availability of the proper equipment to adequately address the emergency at hand. Of course, the emergency service agency must be prepared to address the most serious emergency every time that they are dispatched. Call data for the years 2007-2011 were extracted from the Communications Center's CAD system for both the "Turn-Out" and "Travel Time" intervals. For purposes of this report the terms Turn-Out Time and Travel Time are described as follows: • Turn-Out Time-represents the time from when the radio announcement and request for assistance is received at the EMS Unit "start" location by the EMT's on duty, until the wheels on that response vehicle (ambulance) are moving; i.e. and is announced as enroute. • Travel Time-is the time interval between that when the ambulance's wheels are moving with EMT's on board, to the time it arrives on the scene and the vehicle's wheels have stopped; i.e. "travel time". The numbers listed represent the average times, in minutes and seconds, of all calls dispatched during each of the corresponding years. As previously described, the Total (average) Response Time for each year, is the sum of the average Turn-Out and the average Travel Time for that year. Figure 14 EMS Interval&Total Average Response Times/2007-2011 Total Units Turn-Out Travel Total Year Dispatched Time Time Resp Time 2007 9,269 1:41 7:41 9:26 2008 9,833 1:38 8:15 9:56 2009 9,749 1:29 9:15 10:49 2010 10,420 1:27 9:47 11:14 2011 10,719 1:16 9:30 10:47 5 Year Average: 0:01:30 0:08:53 0:10:26 Subsequently, the average Turn-Out Time for the years studied was 1 1/2 minutes. The average Travel Time was just under nine (9) minutes. And, the average Total Response Time for the five years studied was 10 minutes and 26 seconds. As illustrated, although the Total Response Time average for 2011 decreased (improved) by 27 seconds over that documented for 2010, the trend is definitely "upward" and appears to be increasing. Prominent industry standard setting organizations, such as NFPA, NCOEMS/PreMIS and others, in recent years have emphasized and defined new standards for measuring response time performance that no longer consider average times but rather "fractile" times as a percentage of all calls for response performance measurement. For example, "that 90% of all calls dispatched be responded to in "x" minutes or less". Solutions for Local Government,Inc. 20