By EMS1 Staff
SAN DIEGO — San Diego’s emergency response times have slowly decreased, but it is failing to meet the national standard.
Following a fatal incident in April, the city has worked to cut down its response times. The average wait time in April was 15 seconds; in August, the wait time was six seconds. The response time was cut down to five seconds in September, reported KPBS.
Although the response times have decreased, the city is failing to meet the national standard for responding to 90 percent of calls within 10 seconds.
In August, about 85 percent of calls were answered within 10 seconds, and in September that percentage crept up to 88. In April, only 67 percent of calls were answered within 10 seconds.
“We are not only going to hit 90 [percent], we are going to keep it there for years to come,” San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. “We made a focused improvement, and that was absolutely necessary.”
The city also hired new dispatchers, offered pay raises to existing dispatchers as well as a new compensation package.