Agenda - 10-03-2013 - 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Comprehensive Assessment of Emergency Medical Services 116 and 911 /Communications Center Operations Study Police While a great deal has been written with regards to law enforcement response times there is no identifiable time standard with which to judge performance or efficiency using only time as a basis. Urban or rural setting, nature of the offense, method of notification and personnel and equipment availability only begin to describe the variables that will inevitably effect police response time to an emergency situation to which they are called. "Ideally, if the police are notified as a crime is in progress, they have a good chance to arrive before the perpetrators leave the scene. If police do not arrive at the scene within a few minutes, but still arrive while witnesses remain and are able to talk with them while the crime is still fresh in their memory, then they have a high probability of being able to solve the crime ". (NENA; 911 System Survey and Resource Guide; 2002) Fire The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) states that if a fire is not suppressed in eight to 10 minutes from the time of ignition, it will flashover, spreading outside the initial area or room of origin. "As a rule of thumb, first responders should arrive on the scene in less than five minutes, 90% of the time." (National Institutes of Health) "The fire department shall establish a response time objective ... of four minutes or less for the arrival of the first arriving engine company at a fire suppression incident, for not less than 90% of all incidents" [NFPA Standard 1710 for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations; Section 4.1.3.1.1.]. Note that "response time" in this standard is expressed as the time from "wheels are rolling" to "wheels stopped" at the scene. Medical The same NFPA Standard (1710) also states that "deployment objectives for the first responder /AED level to arrive within four minutes for 90% of all calls ". "For cardiac arrest, the highest hospital discharge rate has been achieved in patients for whom CPR was initiated within 4 minutes of arrest and advanced cardiac life support within 8 minutes ". (American Heart Association) In an incident involving lack of oxygen, brain damage is very likely at 6 -10 minutes; irreversible after 10 minutes. (American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons) Emergency Communications The aforementioned NENA publication, 911 System Survey and Resource Guide states that: "An important unit of measurement for primary public safety answering points (PSAP's) is average call length. Calltakers and dispatchers must try to minimize call length while at the same time processing all of the information required to dispatch a call." The study found that the average call length decreased as PSAP size increased. Average call length was 91 seconds for emergency calls in small PSAP's, 74 seconds for medium PSAP's and 66 seconds for large PSAP's, as defined in the survey. Solutions for Local Government, Inc. 72