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Q&A
Addressing increased response times for life-threatening medical emergencies
0:25:38
ยท
3 min
Council Member Ariola raises concerns about increased response times for life-threatening medical emergencies, and Commissioner Tucker outlines several strategies the FDNY is implementing to address this issue.
- Response times for life-threatening medical emergencies increased from 10:37 to 11:21 in the first four months of FY 2025
- Commissioner Tucker emphasizes there's no single solution to fix response time issues
- Strategies being implemented include:
- Placing EMS officers in problematic emergency rooms to reduce patient transfer delays
- Deploying non-transport paramedic response units for critical care
- Changing policy to transport patients to the closest hospital instead of patient-chosen hospitals
- Tucker stresses the need for a balanced approach to hospital transports and diversions
Joann Ariola
0:25:38
Thank you.
0:25:41
End to end response times for life threatening this is about emergency medical responses.
0:25:49
End to end response times for life threatening medical emergencies increased from ten minutes and thirty seven seconds to eleven minutes and twenty one seconds in the first four months of 2025, FY '25.
0:26:01
What do you think the key factors are to contributing to this delay and what steps are being taken to improve response delays?
Robert Tucker
0:26:08
Yeah.
0:26:09
Again, you know, I'm I'm almost I'm almost manically focused on on EMS and response times is certainly a critical part of my focus.
0:26:20
What what I would say is that there's no one thing that's going to fix the response time issue.
0:26:29
Response times are up for a lot of reasons.
0:26:34
Chief Fields and his staff are are working tirelessly, again, to be creative about ways we can get ambulances on the street.
0:26:46
We have we have several new programs running right now that I'd like to highlight.
0:26:53
One is that I now have an EMS officer in certain problematic emergency rooms because where we're seeing significant delays is when our EMTs and paramedics bring patients to emergency departments.
0:27:09
We're waiting more than forty, forty five minutes just to deliver the patient.
0:27:16
We can bring that time down by having an EMS officer in the emergency department to help move things along, the ambulance will get back on the street in an available capacity sooner.
0:27:29
Another thing that we're trying I think is working rather successfully is our paramedic response units.
0:27:37
Those are non transport units that are getting critical life saving paramedic level medicine to our most acutely sick people in New York.
0:27:49
And that once they provide that service, they don't take part in the transportation and so they move on to the next call.
0:28:00
We're going to need to find some balance and I'm working very hard on it on who we bring to the hospital and who we're able to divert away from that.
0:28:09
And our paramedic response units are really helping move things along faster scene to scene to scene.
0:28:19
Finally, we very recently changed a long standing policy around the ten minute rule we call it, where patients were essentially using our ambulances like taxicabs and saying I want to go to this hospital.
0:28:43
Today we are only going to bring patients in most instances to the closest hospital.
0:28:51
That's gonna change response times because that too will take a twenty minute ride or a thirty minute ride to a hospital of your choice, turn it into a ten minute ride, and I'll get those twenty minutes back.