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With changes in the way emergency calls are being handled and directed, the Springfield Fire Department is responding quicker and more effectively to emergency situations. KSMU’s Jamie Givens reports.
After completing a 90-day review of its changes to its emergency response plan, the Springfield Fire Department says its response times have been cut by nearly a minute.
The fire department implemented some changes in August.
Assistant Fire Chief David Hall says the new system has worked by narrowing in on potentially life-threatening emergencies.“The change that we have made is that we would respond to 10 potentially life-threatening conditions that came into the 911, we’d automatically be sent. The previous process had it to where a call would come into 911, would be directed to the ambulance service who would then determine if the fire department needed to respond,” Hall said.
The department had an average dispatch processing time of one minute and twenty-four seconds over the past three months. That’s almost a minute quicker than the average time of two minutes and twenty-two seconds during the same stretch last year.
Hall says that along with responding more quickly to critical situations, the changes have also prevented the fire department from responding to calls that it really doesn’t need to.“Many of those, we were just getting returned to service and sent back by the ambulance, or we’d get there and just wait, really, and do nothing until the ambulance got there because there wasn’t anything for us to do. This allowed us to get back to service or remain in service, so we could get to the other calls quicker,” Hall said.
Over this review period, Hall says the department responded to twenty-eight percent fewer non-life threatening calls. He said this not only saved the department on fuel costs, but also allowed them to be readily available in the event of a more serious situation.
Hall says that no further changes are planned for the immediate future in regards to response protocols, although he says the department will continually monitor its progress.
For KSMU News, I’m Jamie Givens.