Epstein asks for public-facing ambulance tracking and callback info

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for all being here.

So it sounds like there's consensus that we need to pay our EMSs more.

It sounds like there's some opportunity to be working on that in the, either this year and then through negotiations or next year in the budget.

But I think we're trying to look at what's happening, the public-facing aspect of it, and we're trying to ensure the public has good, accurate information so they can

be able to make informed choices about waiting a half hour or getting into a cab or making other choices about maybe not the priority emergencies.

Like what system, you know, like are there all the EMS vehicles, are they GPS tracked?

Yes.

So there's the current system to monitor where those vehicles are and where they're going, right?

Yes, and that's how we determine which, aside from acuity, whether it needs an ALS or a BLS ambulance, that's how we determine which ambulance is closest to respond to that call.

And none of that is publicly facing, right?

None of that information is publicly facing.

Meaning that someone can log in and see where ambulances are.

Yeah, there's ambulances on the way.

There's no way to know if that's actually true, right?

No, currently no.

There's no way for someone to call 911 back again to be able to say, hey, how soon is an ambulance coming?

There's no way to do that, right?

No.

So you understand the concern that people have that, you know, my kid broke his leg and we're waiting at the playground for the ambulance to come.

And if it's going to be an hour, I may make a different choice than sitting there for an hour with my kid who's in pain with a broken leg, right?

I think we're all trying to solve this problem.

I do.

I appreciate everything that you're saying, and I think we appreciate what the bill is intended to do.

But, you know, in this situation, like the speaker's constituent who called, right, we had ambulances responding.

So we don't want, but a higher acuity call came in and they needed to be redirected.

So we don't want to.

Tell somebody.

You can tell them, hey, you know what?

We had an ambulance.

They were redirected.

We're letting you know this ambulance is redirected, and we're looking for another ambulance to send to you.

So that, like, information, I know people...

We're busy, but there's maybe some automation that can help in that.

It's like we all have the technologies out there that we can do more publicly facing technology to help people with this information.

We agree and we will take a look at that.

We know that when they have the information that it might not be coming soon, that they might take alternate action.

I appreciate that.

And that saves the system in sending an hour later a vehicle that there's no one there waiting for anymore.