Ariola asks call taker staffing and safe hold numbers
Ariola asks how EMS call takers are scheduled and what number of held calls the system can safely handle. Miano says call takers are staggered based on historical volumes, and he explains that the system prioritizes high-acuity calls and redirects ambulances rather than using a fixed safe hold number.
So how?
How often and what are the number of EMS call takers that EMS call takers are available?
So EMS call takers are scheduled in a staggered.
They report in a staggered manner throughout the day based on historical call volume highs and lows.
So at our peak time, we are staffed with the peak amount of call takers that we have.
In our off-peak times, we work on staggering up and staggering down.
But I will defer to Chief Werner for more clarification.
Our baseline schedule is a three, eight and a half hour shift around the clock.
And then I stagger the 12 hour members throughout the day into the evening when our call volume increases.
Okay, so.
For lack of a better word, what, in your opinion, is the safe amount of calls to be on hold that the system can handle in the current staffing state?
Could you just repeat that one more time?
Sorry.
So what do you believe is a safe amount of calls to be on hold in the system that the system now can handle in its current staffing state?
200 calls, 100 call.
Like if you get an average of 100 calls in a day, and I'm making that number up, and now you've got 200 calls that day, what's the breaking point?
So I think it's...
It's much more dynamic than it being so black and white to be able to just come out with a number, right?
38% of the calls that we receive every day are what we consider to be high acuity or life-threatening.
So that means the other 62% calls that come in are not considered life-threatening or high priority.
So we do not want our life-threatening.
assignments to hold at all.
And that is why the system is designed where if we are responding to a low acuity assignment, an ambulance is redirected to a higher acuity assignment.
So there is no number, right?
There's no exact number that I could give you that would make any sense because it varies so much, not just day to day, but hour to hour and literally moment to moment.
Like I mentioned to the speaker, we had several ambulances responding to the
constituent's injury, but they were redirected because someone else called and they were having what is considered a life-threatening emergency.