Forney reviews EMS assessment; consultant outlines options to shorten response times

Fitch & Associates told the Forney City Council on Tuesday that the city’s current EMS response performance averages 9.3 minutes from 911 call to first unit on scene and 13.7 minutes at the 90th percentile, and outlined options that range from contracting for dedicated ambulances to building a municipal ambulance service.

The consultant’s report, presented by Thomas Moore of Fitch & Associates, summarized five years of call and CAD data and modeled multiple staffing and deployment scenarios to show what it would take to reach travel-time goals commonly used in emergency medical services planning.

Moore said dispatch times averaged 1.6 minutes (2.7 minutes at the 90th percentile), turnout time averaged 1.6 minutes (2.7 at the 90th), and travel time averaged 6.1 minutes (10 minutes at the 90th). “Response time — the citizen’s experience, from call to first unit on scene — averaged 9.3 minutes and was 13.7 minutes at the ninetieth percentile,” Moore said.

Why it matters: For high-acuity incidents such as cardiac arrest and drowning, research cited by Fitch shows outcomes improve with faster first-response times; the city must weigh how much improvement it wants against the cost of adding staffed units or changing service models.

Fitch presented modeled options by travel-time target and estimated resources. To achieve a 7-minute travel-time goal to roughly 93.8% of incidents, Fitch estimated five post locations and six staffed ambulances would be required. A 10-minute target would require about three…