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17 <br /> Commissioner Price said people have applied for census jobs but have not heard back <br /> from the Census bureau yet. She said census workers will have identification on them. She <br /> said Orange County has invested $1500 already, and will invest an additional another $5000. <br /> Commissioner Price said the census website has about 100 languages. <br /> Commissioner Greene said the official hot line # is: 1-800-424-6974 <br /> Mayor Weaver thanked the Census Count Committees. <br /> Mayor Hemminger introduced the item below: <br /> 3. Update on the County's Emergency Response Time and Co-Location Efforts <br /> Background <br /> Dinah Jeffries, Emergency Services Director, presented this item along with Kim <br /> Woodward, Emergency Medical Services Operations Manager. <br /> Background <br /> In FY 2019-20 (July 1, 2019 to January 17, 2020), Orange County Emergency Medical <br /> Services (EMS) has responded to 9,033 calls, with a projected outlook for the year of 16,500 <br /> calls. During this period, approximately 208 times, the County has needed to request <br /> assistance from surrounding counties (Durham, Alamance, Chatham, Caswell and Person) to <br /> respond to calls when no EMS units were available. With the addition of the UNC-Hillsborough <br /> Emergency Department (ED), EMS has been able to reduce the discharge time for patients and <br /> report available for service. This does not affect the call volume; however, it does reduce the <br /> length of time that a unit is out of service, thus reducing the time that County partners must <br /> remain on standby to respond into Orange County for calls. <br /> Issue 1: UNC-Hillsborough Hospital and the relationship to EMS response times <br /> Traditionally, Orange County EMS transported all of patients to UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke/Durham <br /> Regional and/or Alamance Regional. With the new UNC-Hillsborough location opening in 2015, <br /> transports to Duke have dramatically decreased, which in turn clears units quicker to return for <br /> service. <br /> UNC Hillsborough (UNC-H) is typically served by Medic 1 (Revere Road, Hillsborough), Medic 4 <br /> (Mt. Willing Road, Efland), Medic 5 (St. Mary's Road, Hillsborough), and Medic 7 (NC 86 South <br /> — across from Camp New Hope, Chapel Hill). Patients are being transported to UNC-H by <br /> ambulance from northern Chapel Hill and northern Orange County. In 2019 Orange County <br /> EMS transported 1,254 patients to UNC-H. The average turn-around time of an ambulance <br /> transporting to UNC-H was 26 minutes 29 seconds, in stark contrast to the 37 minute 53 <br /> second average - around time for ambulances transporting to Duke University Medical Center. <br /> While impossible to analyze fully, this quicker turn-around time, accompanied by the shorter <br /> transport time to UNC-H, allows ambulances to clear up faster from each call. Response time is <br /> dependent on the number of available ambulances and the proximity to the requested <br /> response. The opening of UNC-H also allowed many of the northern Orange County patients, <br /> who would have otherwise been taken to Duke or UNC Main Campus in Chapel Hill, to be <br /> transported to a closer hospital with a shorter turn-around time. <br /> Background <br /> Orange County EMS is a single EMS district, which delivers response to the entire County <br /> encompassing approximately 398 square miles to include the three municipalities. The highest <br /> percentage of EMS calls occur within and proximate to Chapel Hill, followed by Hillsborough <br />