Posts Tagged Chicago adds ALS ambulances

Chicago Fire Department news

Mar 3

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 9 Comments

Last summer, the Chicago Fire Department hailed the addition of five new ambulances as a step to cutting chronically slow response times to emergency calls. According to an analysis of eight months of Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) data the fleet was up to 80 ambulances.

A comparison of ambulance response times for the four months before the new ambulances were added to the same four months after the addition revealed that the average response times improved just four seconds– from seven minutes, 22 seconds to seven minutes, 18 seconds. The state standard is six minutes.

Response times were supposed to be helped when the University of Chicago opened its trauma center last spring because ambulances wouldn’t have to travel as far for critical runs, but the data shows only an incremental improvement.

Further analysis showed most ambulances go on 10 runs in a 24-hour period, but the busiest ambulances can have up to 18 runs a day.

At the current fleet level of 80 ambulances, Chicago ranks last in number of ambulances per one thousand people when compared to other big cities. If Chicago added 20 more ambulances the rate jumps to 3.7 per 1,000 people — meeting national norms. A recent industry report said the Chicago Fire Department needs to bring its fleet up to 100 ambulances.

In 2015, the Chicago Inspector General issued a report criticizing the fire department for not properly tracking response times.

The fire department said the data analyzed from the OEMC is unreliable, as well as data used by the inspector general. The department also questions data used by the paramedics union calling for more ambulances. The fire department claims they will be issuing their own report on response times in the next couple of months and said it is now manually reviewing data to identify discrepancies, technical issues, or operating errors. Until that is done, it cannot verify the accuracy of response time data.

Here is the entire statement provided by the Chicago Fire Department:

“Ensuring Chicago has the highest quality emergency medical services and rapid ambulance response times is our top priority. Following last summer’s expansion of the department’s ambulance fleet, CFD announced it would conduct a comprehensive analysis on the impact of the five new ambulances to ensure it meets the needs of Chicago.

To ensure the accuracy of this intensive study, CFD is reviewing data manually to determine any discrepancies, technical issues, or operating errors; the department estimates it will need no less than 45 days to complete this review. While the department’s analysis is underway, we cannot verify the accuracy of raw data and information that has not undergone a comprehensive review by the Chicago Fire Department.”

thanks Martin

Tags: Chicago adds ALS ambulances, Chicago Fire Department, Chicago lags other cities in ambulances per one thousand people, EMS response times in Chicago

Chicago Fire Department news

Mar 5

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 2 Comments

Excerpts from the ChicagoSunTimes.com:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration and the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 are blaming each other for a broken promise to add at least five ambulances by July 1, 2016.

“As part of the side letter with Local 2, the fire department and union agreed they would form a six- person committee to come to a consensus on the placement of the five new ambulances,” mayoral spokesperson Julienn Kaviar wrote in an email.

“The fire department sent a letter in January of 2015 to the union president and has not received the union’s appointments to the committee.”

Even without that committee, sources said the Chicago Fire Department forged ahead with an internal study to determine locations for the five new ambulances that has narrowed the list of possible sites to fewer than fifteen.

Ald. Nick Sposato (38th), a former Chicago firefighter, agreed that the ambulance expansion he championed got lost in the shuffle, in part because of the shortage of paramedics.

“There is no how, no way if they put five more ambulances out there that they would be able to man ’em because they don’t have enough paramedics,” Sposato said.

“All of these paramedics are making a ton of money because they’re working a day, off a day, working a day, off a day. That’s a brutal schedule for paramedics because they pretty much take a beating out there. If they’re in busier ambulances, they’re doing 20-to-25 runs-a-day, four or five runs after midnight.”

Sposato noted that a class of 50 paramedics started their ten weeks of training this week and another class of 50 is scheduled to start in June. A third class may follow this fall.

The five-year firefighters contract that expires on June 30 included a dramatic upgrade in emergency medical care — by ending Chicago’s two-tiered system of ambulance service.

Instead, all 15 of Chicago’s basic-life-support ambulances were converted to advanced-life-support, giving Chicago 75 ambulances.

The move freed up the equivalent of 30 firefighters, since each one of the city’s BLS ambulances were staffed by a pair of firefighter-EMT’s. At the same time, the city agreed to hire more paramedics — anywhere from 50 to 200.

The contract also included a side-letter promising to appoint a six-member ambulance expansion committee — with three appointees from both the city and Local 2 — within 60 days of contract ratification.

Last month, veteran paramedics accused Emanuel and their own union leaders of dropping the ball on a promised ambulance expansion they claim is desperately needed. The wave of paramedic hiring promised during negotiations hasn’t happened either, veteran paramedics said.

During the first six months of last year, the fire department had already spent $26 million on overtime. That’s 86.6 percent of its overtime budget for the entire year.

thanks Dan

Tags: Chicago adds ALS ambulances, Chicago FD eliminates BLS ambulances, Chicago Fire Department, Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2, Chicago to remove BLS ambulances from service, chicagoareafire.com

Chicago Fire Department news

Feb 13

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 10 Comments

Excerpts from the Chicago-Suntimes.com:

Veteran paramedics are accusing their union and Mayor Rahm Emanuel of dropping the ball on a promise to pursue the addition of at least five more advanced life support ambulances by July 1, 2016.

The five-year firefighters contract that expires on June 30 included a dramatic upgrade in emergency medical care by ending Chicago’s two-tiered system of ambulance service.

Instead, all 15 of Chicago’s basic-life-support ambulances were converted to advanced-life-support, giving Chicago 75 (ALS) ambulances.

The move freed up the equivalent of 30 firefighters, since each one of the city’s BLS ambulances were staffed by a pair of firefighter-EMTs. At the same time, the city agreed to hire more paramedics — anywhere from 50 to 200.

Within 60 days of contract ratification, the city and the union were to each appoint three representatives to a committee to oversee ambulance expansion.

“It was completely dropped. It died. Nobody on the street has heard anything about that since then. It’s crazy,” said Paramedic Field Chief Rich Raney.

“If you listen to the fire scanner, you will hear every day dispatchers saying, `Do we have anybody available on the North Side? Do we have anybody available out of Northwestern [Hospital]? Do we have anybody available at a variety of hospitals?’

“They are not available. . . . They have to send ambulances from way far away to the downtown area to cover because there’s not enough ambulances.”

The long wait for an ambulance may not show up on dispatch records, only because officials have “found a way around it,” Raney said.

“Say they call for an ambulance and nobody is available. They call for Ambulance 39 at Northwest Highway and Harlem and send them downtown. Fifteen minutes later, while that second ambulance is still in route, they’ll hear an ambulance come up from Northwestern [Hospital] and they’ll say, `Can you take this call?’ They give them that call and they cancel Ambulance 39. And it takes that ambulance that came from Northwestern two, maybe three minutes to get there,” Raney said.

“On the official log, all it’ll say is that it took that ambulance three minutes to get there. It doesn’t say that, prior to that, it took 10, 12 minutes for an ambulance to get even close.”

The wave of paramedic hiring promised during negotiations hasn’t happened either, veteran paramedics said.

According to Raney and veteran paramedic Pat Fitzmaurice, the last paramedic class was hired in December 2014. There have been three classes of firefighters since then.

Paramedics are assigned to work 24 hours on and 72 hours off. But, the shortage of paramedics has forced many paramedics to work 24 hours on and only 24 hours off for as long as three straight weeks, they said.

Fitzmaurice said the city “hasn’t hired paramedics in three years despite taking 30 as cross-trained firefighters.”

“We’re probably 150 short,” he wrote in a text message to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Tom Ryan, retiring president of Local 2, was tight-lipped when asked why the ambulance expansion promise made in the contract side-letter was broken.

“On this particular issue, the ball is in the city’s court. We still await a response from them,” Ryan wrote in a text message, without explaining what he meant.

Mayoral spokeswoman Julienn Kaviar said: “In the April 2014 contract, we agreed with Union Local 2 to upgrade 15 Basic Life Support ambulances to Advanced Life Support ambulances, making all 75 Chicago Fire Department ambulances ALS vehicles. We did. The fire department’s Emergency Medical Services Division continues to enhance resources and training to ensure EMTs and paramedics have the tools they need when faced with extraordinary circumstances.”