Sometimes, this can have deadly consequences.

So, what can we do about our unreliable ambulance service in Athens?

State-Level Reform

A popular ethics and transparency bill recently came before the Georgia legislature. House Bill 264 would have applied strict, new transparency and ethics protections in EMS delivery. It passed the House 148-6 and the Senate 51-0. In the eleventh hour the bill was effectively poisoned when an individual representing narrow, moneyed interests (such as Priority EMS) put a rider in the bill that was so outrageous that no member in either party could support it. So, a bill that had cleared both houses (199-6) was not even voted on.

This was unfortunate, but we are hopeful the bill will pass next year. Until then, there is a lot we can do locally to address this issue.

Local Action

You can see a list of our local priorities for EMS reform here.  Our Priority #1 is, “All 911 EMS Emergency Responses will be handled exclusively through our state of the art 911 Athens-Clarke County Dispatch Center.” Right now, if you call 911, you will have to tell your emergency twice, to two different agencies! This is confusing, inefficient and potentially life threatening. It needs to stop.

We have learned that a study was recently completed by ACCPD about community needs regarding 911 dispatching. The conclusion of the study was that “ACCPD Central Communications (911 Center) will process and dispatch EMS calls received through emergency telephone lines. ACC Central Communication will operate under emergency medical dispatch (EMD) protocols and provide medical instruction to callers.”

So, our top priority for EMS is already endorsed by the Police Department!

The recommended option of both ACCPD and A4E will enhance efficiency, increase transparency and save lives. It unfortunately has not been prioritized by our elected officials so far. The commission is currently debating the FY 2020 budget, so now is the time to focus their attention on this extremely important public safety reform.

Please email Mayor Girtz and your commissioner today!

Script

Dear Mayor Girtz and Commissioner _______,

I am writing about the proposed FY 2020 budget for Athens-Clarke County and to let you know that I am concerned about our privatized ambulance service. People in need of emergency assistance shouldn’t have to explain their emergency twice — it causes delays and puts people at risk.

Our own police department has recommended that we switch to a central communication center and take over dispatching for all 911 calls. I agree with this idea and I want to urge you to find funding for it in this year’s budget.

There are so many community needs currently lacking funding, so I understand this can be a tough decision. But public safety is a core responsibility of government. Residents of Athens need to know that, in their moment of greatest need, help will be on the way as quickly as possible. Right now, this is not the case. Please address this issue as soon as you can.

Thank you for all the work you do for our community,

Sincerely,

Your Name

______________________________________________________________

Send to:

kelly.girtz@accgov.com
patrick.davenport@accgov.com
mariah.parker@accgov.com
melissa.link@accgov.com
allison.wright@accgov.com
tim.denson@accgov.com
jerry.nesmith@accgov.com
russell.edwards@accgov.com
andy.herod@accgov.com
ovita.thornton@accgov.com
mike.hamby@accgov.com

In fact, it couldn’t hurt if you want to go ahead and email them all!

Please share this post with friends who might care about the quality of emergency health services in Athens.

Athens for Everyone
May 6, 2019

For years, National EMS and both hospitals have refused to release their ambulance “911 Emergency Response” numbers. 911 emergency calls are a public service, even if provided by a private company. We believe National EMS has a responsibility to be transparent and should be held accountable when they fail to provide timely service.

We filed an open records request with the Georgia Department of Health that showed that National EMS is far from meeting its obligations as stated in its contract and in the national standards. According to these numbers, in the smallest county in the state of Georgia, National EMS only responded to 39 percent of 911 calls within the 8 minute and 59 second standard and did not meet the 90 percent of the time requirement until 18 minutes.

Now National EMS is saying that the numbers it provided to the Georgia Department of Public Health for “911 Emergency Responses” are misleading. National EMS Chief Operating Officer Benny Atkins stated in the Flagpole on June 27 that these numbers combine “high priority calls that are true emergencies, like heart attacks, with lower priority calls, such as transfers between hospitals.” The Georgia Department of Public Health labeled all the calls it provided in response to our open-records response as “911 Emergency Response.” Transfers between hospitals typically do not originate in the 911 system. We are asking that National EMS back up its claims with verifiable data and provide the complete data set.

The first four spreadsheets are the raw, unprocessed data from 2014 to 2017 as received from the Georgia Department of Public Health through a state Open Records Request. Excel spreadsheets 5-8 are the data as processed by our accountant. We are also attaching further documentation, including a copy of the Open Records Request itself.

The type of call we are tracking are those that come in through 911 and are labeled “911 Emergency Response” by the Georgia Department of Public Health (Column C of the Excel spreadsheet, “Type of Service Requested”). All 50,918 calls we tracked have the words “911 Emergency Response” in Column C. Transfers between hospitals do not typically come in through 911 despite what National EMS Chief Operating Officer Benny Atkins recently claimed.

Note that in the raw data Excel spreadsheet, Column A is “Service Name – National EMS,” Column B is “Incident County – Clarke,” and Column C is “Type of Service Requested – 911 Emergency Response.” Again, all 50,918 calls we had analyzed are from Column C and labeled “911 Emergency Response” by the Georgia Department of Public Health. This means that all calls were made from Athens, Georgia and started as 911 emergency calls.

Finally, we would like to emphasize further that averages can be highly deceptive. The National Fire Protection Association 1710 and Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Standards call for EMS response within 8 minutes and 59 seconds 90 percent of the time, as does National’s contract, with no mention of a required average. We have been asking National for years to provide the time within which it answers 90 percent of its calls and it has steadfastly refused to release those numbers. Now we know why.

Athens for Everyone
July 2, 2018

National EMS consistently fails to meet the required response times. Its contract guarantees that the company will meet the national standard of 8 minutes and 59 seconds on 90 percent of 911 calls. But between 2014 and 2017, National EMS only responded to 39 percent of 911 ambulance calls within 9 minutes and only 48.5 percent within 10 minutes. Between 26,235 and 31,055 calls failed to meet the standard set out in the contract, by their accrediting body, and by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1710. In 2016 and 2017, National EMS answered 90 percent of its calls within 18 minutes (more than double the 8 minute and 59 second standard; see table below).

We obtained the data through an attorney and an Open Records request through the Georgia Department of Public Health. These numbers have been processed according to standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. You can see the raw data and other supporting documents here.

National EMS admittedly and systematically abandons state-mandated 911 coverage zones to run more profitable, non-emergency transports. Sam Rafal, coordinator of our EMS response initiative, asked the owner of National EMS, “Can you assure me that if a member of my family has a time sensitive, life-threatening emergency that the 911 ambulance designated to cover our zone will not have been pulled to run a non-emergency transport?” The answer was an emphatic, “No, I will not.” Additionally, when an emergency occurs, callers have to explain their medical or traumatic emergency twice — once to the Athens-Clarke County dispatcher and again when the call is handed off to National EMS. This is confusing, inefficient and extremely dangerous. National EMS refuses to establish a separate division for running 911 calls, choosing to put profit over public safety.

Recently, District 1 commissioner-elect Patrick Davenport had a situation where his mother collapsed and was in excruciating abdominal pain. He called 911. He explained his emergency to the dispatcher. He was put on hold while the call was handed off to National EMS, where he had to explain his emergency again. After waiting over 15 minutes for an ambulance response, he loaded his mother into the car as best he could and drove her to the hospital himself. According to Commissioner Elect Davenport, “I felt like I had done something wrong when I called 911.” He had not. This is just the system we have in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia.

To address long EMS response times, Athens for Everyone demands the following:

1. That the ambulance service in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, be a public service run through our fire department. If this public safety service remains under (for-profit) private control, we demand the EMS provider run separate 911 and non-emergency transport divisions.

2. That National EMS immediately stop abandoning 911 coverage zones to run non-emergency transports.

3. That all 911 medical calls be handled through our 911 Athens-Clarke County Dispatch Center.

For further reading, please check out this website or our previous blog post on the topic.

911 Ambulance Response Data for Athens-Clarke County

National EMS 2014-2017

Data Source – Georgia Department of Public Health

Data Reviewed by Turner and Patat, P.C. Certified Public Accountants

Percentage of 911 Ambulance Calls Responded to in Under 9 Minutes

**According to the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services and the National Fire Protection Association, ALS (advanced life support) ambulance response should occur within 8 minutes and 59 seconds 90% of the time.

Percentage of 911 Ambulance Calls Responded to in Under 10 Minutes

**According to the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services and the National Fire Protection Association, ALS (advanced life support) ambulance response should occur within 8 minutes and 59 seconds 90 percent of the time.

Athens for Everyone
June 26, 2018

p.s. Concerned about EMS services in Athens? Let the hospitals know! You can see numbers to call and a script here.