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Data shared by American Medical Response, Multnomah County’s ambulance contractor, shows that the amount of time spent in “Level 0″ has dropped from over 20 hours per week in August to 25 minutes in the final week of October.
Level 0 is an indicator that there are no ambulances immediately available for a call, and a sign that the system is overtaxed.
AMR’s ambulances are regularly running late and it is racking up fines for being out of compliance with county on-time requirements. The contractor says it’s short-staffed and can’t find enough paramedics. Under pressure, the county made a deal with AMR earlier this summer to relieve some of the staffing pressure by eliminating the requirement that it staff every ambulance with two paramedics. It also waived some of the fines, assuming AMR could improve compliance.
The move appears to be working. AMR is deploying dozens more ambulances, and the number arriving late for emergencies in urban areas has dropped from 40% this summer to nearly 20% this month, according to data presented by AMR at today’s briefing of county commissioners.
Andrew Cherry, the company’s operations manager, says his firm “is encouraged by the positive trends,” highlighting significant improvements in response rates in Gresham, which was hit hardest by the delays.
For several months in the late summer and early autumn of 2023, ambulances in Gresham were late to 59% of life-threatening calls, according to data released by Multnomah County that WW reported earlier this week.
