By Scott Barker
Knoxville News-Sentinel
Copyright 2007 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
All Rights Reserved
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Despite an ambulance run that took nearly an hour to reach a stroke victim, Rural/Metro logged its best overall response time ratings in the past year during the last two weeks of July.
The ambulance service still will have to pay a $1,250 fine for the month, but that’s a mere drop in the bucket compared to the $97,000 penalty for slow response times in May and the $81,500 assessed for June.
Rural/Metro has been assessed penalties totaling $317,000 during the past 12 months, Knox County Health Department records show.
Rural/Metro and Health Department officials agreed Monday that the ambulance service’s recent hiring binge has improved performance.
Under the terms of its contract, Rural/Metro must arrive at a scene within 10 minutes of receiving a call at least 90 percent of the time. The ambulance service responds to about 60,000 calls per year.
From July 16-31, Rural/Metro ambulances made that goal on 93.1 percent of its runs. That’s better than any half-month period in the last year, according to Health Department records.
During that period, Rural/Metro made headlines by taking 48 minutes to reach 55-year-old Ronnie Webster, who had suffered an apparent stroke. Officials say that’s because of confusion over the address - Webster was on Watauga Drive, while the ambulance initially went to Watauga Avenue, which is about four miles away.
Mark Jones, director of the Health Department, said the Watauga Drive/Watauga Avenue incident, though it took an inordinate amount of time, counted only as one missed run.
Otherwise, he said, “They had a really good record that day. They had additional units available. It was just human error. That wasn’t because they didn’t have enough ambulances.”
Records show Rural/Metro dipped below the 90 percent threshold only once from July 1, 2006, to Feb. 15, 2007.
Tre Hargett, Rural/Metro’s vice president for the Southern Region, said a national shortage of EMTs and paramedics led to lower staffing levels during the first part of 2007.
That shortage is blamed for the drop in timely responses to the 87 percent to 89 percent range, triggering penalties that peaked at $97,000 for the month of May. June was nearly as bad, with penalties totaling $81,500.
However, Hargett said, since then Rural/Metro has hired 12 paramedics and nine EMTs. The ambulance service sweetened the pot for paramedics with $10,000 signing bonuses.
“We’re able to staff at the level we want to, and higher in some cases, to give Knox County the level of service it deserves,” Hargett said.
Hargett said Rural/Metro has a high-caliber staff that should continue to meet the 90 percent threshold.
“You can have the quantity of employees,” Hargett said, “but what I’m impressed with is the quality of employee we’ve had to step up.”
Jones said the Health Department bases its evaluation of Rural/Metro’s performance on twoweek cycles, while other places review ambulance services monthly.
“We’re much tougher than anyone else,” Jones said. “This is the only jurisdiction I know that looks at 15-day (evaluations).”