Ambulance response times in New York City are increasing, hitting their highest level since the COVID-19 outbreak began four years ago, according to Gothamist.
Based on the city’s most recent data, Emergency Medical Services took an average of 12.81 minutes to respond to life-threatening medical crises during the week of Memorial Day, and 28.31 minutes to arrive in non-life-threatening situations. That is the longest response time on both measures since the middle of March 2020, when it averaged 16.91 and 46.40 minutes. According to a 2017 research, the average EMS response time in metropolitan areas throughout the country is seven minutes.
Protracted reactions to medical situations are a reflection of yearly patterns seen in the city. According to the mayor’s management report, the average time it took an ambulance to reach at a site after being summoned went up 69 seconds, or about 11 minutes, in the fiscal year that concluded in June of last year compared to the previous two years.
Additionally, according to municipal data, every month this year in New York has seen a longer wait between dispatch and the arrival of an ambulance than the corresponding months last year.
Michael Fields, the chief of operations for New York City EMS, told Gothamist that a number of reasons have led to an increase in response times. Ambulances are stuck in gridlock due to a record number of cars on the road. According to Fields, the addition of bike lanes in recent years has also resulted in narrower roadways, which makes it more difficult for emergency personnel to overtake moving cars.
Last year saw 1.6 million requests for EMS services, a record high, and this year’s numbers are predicted to reach 1.7 million. According to Fields, the situation has gotten worse since there are fewer emergency rooms accessible for ambulances to transport patients. Similarly, emergency room staffing increased, resulting in paramedics and EMTs staying longer at hospitals before handing patients over to hospital personnel.
Fields shared some suggestions for speeding up ambulance response times and mentioned that the FDNY, which is in charge of EMS, is preparing PSAs to inform New Yorkers on when it is appropriate to call 911 and when it is not.
Fields estimates that local hospitals – not the FDNY – operate around one-third of the ambulances that are summoned via 911. In an effort to get those ambulance crews back out on the streets, he said the agency is planning to place EMS supervisors inside hospitals. In addition, he mentioned that the FDNY intends to have EMTs use telemedicine to interact with on-scene physicians in lieu of wasting time transferring patients to hospitals.
