By Ryan Spoehr
Staff writer
The Village of Palmyra has released data showing quicker response times for EMS calls, indicating that response times have dropped by more than two minutes in 2016 as compared to four years ago.
A graph released by Public Safety Director James Small during the Dec. 19 Village Board meeting shows EMS responses have gone down to 5.07 minutes on average in 2016, a drop from 7.18 minutes in 2012.
Information from 2012 to Dec. 19, 2016 was compiled for the graph. Response times reflect how much it takes between the call and when the ambulance hits the road.
The drop to 5.07 is a part of a downward trend the past five years. The average response time was down to 6.37 in 2013, 6.62 in 2014 and 5.95 in 2015.
“I think those numbers speak well to what we are doing,” Small said.
Cross-training personnel
The improvements come at a time when a process has started train public safety officials in more than just police work or just being a paramedic or firefighter.
“We’ve made major changes here in Palmyra, especially in the last year and a half,” Small said.
Small is not only a police officer, but he is a firefighter and paramedic. He has certification for Firefighter Level 2. John Schroeder is a firefighter, paramedic and fire inspector. Dan Nicholson is an EMT, but he has also been trained as a law enforcement officer and as a firefighter.
“Our system in general is constantly being looked at and improved. We put a lot of time and energy into that. Next year, we are taking another step forward and adding additional training for the staff. We have the addition of the cross-trained law enforcement officers next year too, which will I think put a trained EMS provider on scenes substantially quicker.”
Small said he believes the already-improved response times may become shorter after the cross-training is done.
“These out-the-door times may very well become actual scene times or less. We may very well have a provider on scene before an ambulance leaves the station because of their ability and they are out and about in a vehicle to instantly go to where the call is,” Small said.
The cross-training will not be completely across the board. There will still be some police officers who are not firefighters or vice versa, or police officers trained as EMTs or vice versa, Small said.
“Basically, becomes ‘How do you maintain a system that’s reliable, sustainable and high quality?’ Those are the three metrics you are chasing, and how do you accomplish that with limited resources?”
The Public Safety Department doesn’t have the resources, Small said, to create models for 24/7 service like urban and suburban communities do.
“Honestly, we don’t need that. We don’t have the call volume to justify a full-time staff,” Small said. “For the short-term we could go out and spend $1 million staffing the station in a year and have great coverage, except we’d borrow money to do that, and then there would be next year and the year after. It’s not a sustainable model. The model that we’ve put together is sustainable; it’s within the current resources.”
Small said the 2017 public safety budget is nearly identical to the 2016 budget, with an increase of approximately one-hundredth of a percent.
“Basically, it’s $800 on a $587,000 expenditure. It’s a very, very low increase that’s basically flat. Again, we will improve off of that next step,” Small said.
He said creativity is key to the department’s approach because the village’s challenges to come within a budget are the same as any other community in the U.S.
“We think the model that we are adopting is something that is going to solve that, or significantly help maintain that reliability and sustainability of the system, and maintaining that quality,” Small said. “It’s not being utilized a whole lot. It’s only been an option available for a few years, since 2011, when the state added provisions and statutes to allow that combining public safety models around the state.”
Other department changes
In 2016, the Palmyra EMS system was completely redesigned and the operational plan with the state was changed.
“We changed our service level provider license from Advanced EMT to basic, but at the same time that allowed us to better staff it because we weren’t having difficulties. The tough part was having someone with that Advanced EMT credential level 24/7/365. Now, a lot of times we have that person on staff, but we are still not able to go back to that 24/7/365. But also, I don’t think it’s hurting our patient outcomes at all.”
To help out, there are agreements in place with nearby organizations and communities. Palmyra has recently added agreements with Fort Healthcare’s 799-intercept for paramedic service. Emergency room technicians can be dispatched to the Village in SUVs via the service. The technicians have the ability to provide advanced life support to services surrounding Fort Atkinson.
“So, we’ve got four advanced life support agreements available. At the advanced EMT level, some of the surrounding services operate at that level and we can call on them if one of our providers isn’t available. We can call upon Eagle, for instance, if the person warrants that level of care,” Small said.
There has also been more staff training.
“The quality of the training we are doing has improved. We changed to Aurora Healthcare for our medical direction and control, and they are assisting with training. We’re using quality assurance practices to identify areas that need additional work. That’s where we focus our training on – areas where we are seeing these things,” Small said.
Also in the graph released by Small was the 90-percent fractile time. In 2012, 90 percent of calls were responded to in 12 minutes or less, which is the 90-percent fractile time. That number dropped to 10 in 2013 and 2014, nine in 2015 and eight in 2016.
