Denver Post:911 Non-emergencies A Growing Problem Nationwide

[FirefightnRick]

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14084125

"It's a problem, and it's getting worse," said Jerry Johnston, who just ended his term as president of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians and is an Iowa EMT.

It's costly — an average ambulance call is $300 to $400 — and it's potentially dangerous, Johnston said.

"It becomes frustrating because we could be tied up taking someone to the emergency department who, A, doesn't need to go to the hospital and, B, doesn't need an ambulance," and in the meantime, there is a pileup on a highway and no available paramedics.

The non-emergency medical calls are another matter. Some of these calls are from people gaming the system, such as a woman well-known to Fort Worth, Texas, EMTs, who gets drunk every Friday and then calls 911 and asks to be taken to the hospital a few yards from her apartment....

That's why the woman in Fort Worth is so well-known to EMTs there.

And she is one reason emergency providers in that city devised a novel program that they say saves money and better serves those who need care.

"We identified our 21 most frequent fliers and then looked to see whether there is anything in common among them," said Matt Zavadsky, assistant director of operations for Fort Worth's paramedics.

Turned out, there was.

Many had chronic health problems, others had mental-health problems and some just wanted someone to talk to.

So, the city of about 720,000 created "community health paramedics" who are specially trained to respond to non-emergency medical calls and regularly visit patients to check blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.

"We wanted to make our frequent fliers healthier and decompress the system to make more ambulances available for other types of calls," Zavadsky said.

The results exceeded everybody's expectations, he said.

"We reduced 911 calls by 52 percent and saved our system $560,000 in the first six months," he said.....

Oh, man don't get me started!!!!!!!! First, I know of the woman mentioned above, although she's not in our district. She lives near the hospital district. Our frequent flyers on our side of town would put her to shame. Second, I've never heard of "community health paramedics"? Maybe they work near the hospital district also? The city nor the medical examiner has done a thing to reduce our EMS calls that I know of, so I don't know where they are getting their numbers, possibly from something they have worked out with MedStar, our private contractor? In the past few weeks I've made countless 911 EMS response calls for anything and everything you can think of including headache's, upset stomachs, fever, "I'm cold", "I'm hot" and vaginal itching. My oppinion is we are now 40 years into a society that has relied upon social entitlement programs that has taught many to do nothing for themselves, and the system is now at it's breaking point, and those who truly need help suffer the most.

Rick

Edited December 29, 2009 by FirefightnRick

[yyz28]

I've read several articles on the subject. I think you're right Rick about why the problem exists.

I'd start fining the crap outta' people who use it incorrectly, and that would slow it down real quick.

[greenminer]

I would probably start with better education regarding the purpose of 911 and what constitutes an "emergency."

[KRAM1]

Definitely a major problem, but a fine is probably not going to stop the problem. To fine someone with no means to pay the fine is really no fine at all. It's a tough call here...don't respond to one of these type of people and you are in major hot water if they really do have a legit emergency...keep coming to all their non-emergency 911 calls and you waste time and resources. Tough call..it's a no-win to the city and the fire dept. personnel. Education might help, but most of these folks may just be too ignorant to learn from an education program...they may be nut cases who simply have no clue...who knows...if they have funds and are just abusing the system, yes, fine them and collect if you can, but really, good luck with that!

[Green Mean]

911 Non-emergencies is a problem. I would love for their to be a fine or some sort of punishment for things like this but I just don't know how you implement it and I wonder if there would be some sort of violation of some laws or rights that would ultimately win out in court for them not to implement something like this.