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Officials say new AMR contract, Nurse Navigation and whole‑blood program are improving DeKalb EMS response
Summary
DeKalb County staff told the IRPS committee that a July 1 AMR contract, expanded unit hours and programs such as Nurse Navigation and a whole‑blood initiative have increased ambulance unit hours and reduced response times; officials said some data (hospital offload averages, full cost savings) will be provided later.
DeKalb County officials told the Employer Relations and Public Safety committee that a new contract with AMR and expanded in‑county emergency medical services are producing measurable improvements in response capacity and patient care.
"As you know, as of July 1, we entered a new contract with our partner with AMR," said Chief Carter, who presented the EMS update and summarized progress the department has tracked since 2022. He said AMR is averaging 676 unit hours and county ALS resources are expanding; county ambulance staffing currently averages five to seven ambulances and the department is working toward a 10‑vehicle goal with 240 unit hours.
The contract includes a minimum AMR commitment of 600 unit hours; Chief Carter said the agreement carries a $200 penalty for each hour below that minimum. He also described operational priorities: reducing hospital offload time (APOD), expanding a nurse navigation program and developing mobile integrated health (MIH) responses to lower‑priority calls.
Chief Carter summarized results for those programs: Nurse Navigation, which routes qualifying lower‑priority 911 calls to a clinical triage team, is credited with keeping units available and achieving a 4.8 out of 5 patient satisfaction score and a 92 percent non‑callback rate, "so it is a very successful program," he said. The chief said Nurse Nav data are pulled from the third‑party contractor that provides the system and from 911 dispatch records.
County staff also described a whole‑blood program launched in 2025. "It's something that we started back in 2025," Chief Carter said, and reported the program has supplied 123 units and "gives us a 90 percent survival rate on these non traumatic arrest patients." The statement was presented by county responders during the committee update; the committee did not introduce additional, independent data or study results during the meeting.
On response times, Chief Carter told the panel the department has seen steady improvement since 2022: priority‑1 calls (the most serious) show a reduction of about 2 minutes and 22 seconds from the 2022 baseline; priority‑2 calls have fallen roughly 2 minutes and 52 seconds. He noted National Fire Protection Association guidance recommends about five minutes for priority‑1 responses and about nine minutes for priority‑2 responses, and said the county is "working on" meeting those benchmarks.
Commissioners asked for further detail. Commissioner Robert Patrick pressed for current APOD averages (he recalled earlier reports as high as 55 minutes); Chief Carter said offload times have improved but he did not have system‑wide averages available at the meeting and offered to provide the requested figures. Commissioner Michelle Long Spears asked for January–June 2026 call‑volume data; Chief Carter agreed to provide that. Commissioners also asked whether Nurse Navigation has produced quantified dollar savings; Chief Carter said the program’s fiscal savings have not yet been calculated, and staff offered to pursue those analyses.
The committee did not take formal action on the EMS presentation; staff said they will supply the requested data to commissioners for follow‑up.
