Chair Ariola asks EMS headcount and impact on response times
Ariola asks for the current EMS headcount and how it has changed. Maiano says EMS is approximately 400 members below headcount, meaning fewer ambulances on the street, but the Central Resource Coordination Center moves ambulances from high-availability areas to low-availability areas to maintain response times.
And sticking with EMS, what is the current head count for EMS?
How has it increased or decreased over the past few years?
And how has that impacted response times?
The current headcount for EMS, the exact number, I don't have written down, but I can tell you that we are below headcount of approximately 400 members.
In regards to response times, that does mean less ambulances on the street.
However,
We have what we call the Central Resource Coordination Center, and that is a 24-hour staff center that consistently looks at ambulance availability throughout the city and deploys ambulances from areas that
have a large amount of availability into areas that have reduced availability so we can maintain our response times.