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Comprehensive Assessment of Emergency Medical Services 65 <br />and 911 /Communications Center Operations Study <br />Factors impacting response time include of course the distance that must be covered, but also specific <br />and /or unique area characteristics such as road conditions, geography, and development density. <br />Factors influencing the quality of the response have to do with not only the time it takes to get to the <br />scene of the emergency but also the information communicated to the responding service unit, the skill <br />of the personnel responding, and the availability of the proper equipment to adequately address the <br />emergency at hand. Of course, the emergency service agency must be prepared to address the most <br />serious emergency every time that they are dispatched. <br />Call data for the years 2007 -2011 were extracted from the Communications Center's CAD system for <br />both the "Turn -Out" and "Travel Time" intervals. For purposes of this report the terms Turn -Out Time <br />and Travel Time are described as follows: <br />• Turn -Out Time - represents the time from when the radio announcement and request for assistance <br />is received at the EMS Unit "start" location by the EMT's on duty, until the wheels on that <br />response vehicle (ambulance) are moving; i.e. and is announced as enroute. <br />• Travel Time -is the time interval between that when the ambulance's wheels are moving with <br />EMT's on board, to the time it arrives on the scene and the vehicle's wheels have stopped; i.e. <br />"travel time ". <br />The numbers listed represent the average times, in minutes and seconds, of all calls dispatched during <br />each of the corresponding years. As previously described, the Total (average) Response Time for each <br />year, is the sum of the average Turn -Out and the average Travel Time for that year. <br />Figure 14 <br />EMS Interval & Total Average Response Times /2007 -2011 <br />Year <br />Total Units <br />Dispatched <br />Turn -Out <br />Time <br />Travel <br />Time <br />Total <br />Resp. Time <br />2007 <br />9,269 <br />1:41 <br />7:41 <br />9:26 <br />2008 <br />9,833 <br />1:38 <br />8:15 <br />9:56 <br />2009 <br />9,749 <br />1:29 <br />9:15 <br />10:49 <br />2010 <br />10,420 <br />1:27 <br />9:47 <br />11:14 <br />2011 <br />10,719 <br />1:16 <br />9:30 <br />10:47 <br />5 Year Average: <br />0:01:30 <br />0:08:53 <br />0:10:26 <br />Subsequently, the average Turn -Out Time for the years studied was 1 % minutes. The average Travel <br />Time was just under nine (9) minutes. And, the average Total Response Time for the five years studied <br />was 10 minutes and 26 seconds. As illustrated, although the Total Response Time average for 2011 <br />decreased (improved) by 27 seconds over that documented for 2010, the trend is definitely "upward" <br />and appears to be increasing. <br />Prominent industry standard setting organizations, such as NFPA, NCOEMS /PreMIS and others, in recent <br />years have emphasized and defined new standards for measuring response time performance that no <br />longer consider average times but rather 'fractile" times as a percentage of all calls for response <br />performance measurement. For example, "that 90% of all calls dispatched be responded to in "x" <br />minutes or less". <br />Solutions for Local Government, Inc. 21 <br />