By Lara Brenckle
Patriot News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2008 Patriot News
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A new piece of equipment is saving time — and maybe lives — on some ambulance calls: a Global Positioning System.
A crew from Fairview Twp.'s emergency medical service shaved five minutes off its response time during a recent call in Warrington Twp. because of a dashboard-mounted GPS unit purchased four months ago, said Jeremy Maugans, the EMS chief.
Rather than rely on maps or personal knowledge, the crew typed the address into the GPS.
“Generally, that’s an area we don’t get called into. We used the GPS, and it gave us the direct route,” Maugans said. Five minutes “is a significant amount of time.”
Fairview Twp. EMS is one of a number of emergency medical companies in the midstate, including Silver Spring Ambulance & Rescue Association and Newberry EMS, that have added GPS units to their ambulances. Most are simply buying the devices at electronics stores and using cigarette lighters and dashboard mounts to install them.
Maugans said he bought Fairview’s devices out of the company’s general fund because it is seeking advanced life support certification. If certification is granted, crews would make runs well beyond their typical territory, Maugans said, and the devices would cut down on their getting lost.
Ted Gartner, a spokesman for Garmin, one of the companies that produces GPS units, said the company does not keep track of who buys its products. However, personal GPS devices account for 75 percent to 80 percent of the Kansas-based business, he said. It sold more than 5.5 million of them in the fourth quarter of 2007.
“A lot of professionals, from law enforcement to first responders, even insurance agents, have all used them,” he said.
GPS units can cost $200 to $600 each.
Dennis Stoner, the chief of Silver Spring Ambulance, said a GPS is one small piece of equipment his crews can use to do their jobs more efficiently.
Map books, published once a year, can quickly become out of date. When seconds count, he said, you don’t want to be flipping through maps and guessing your way to a call.
“It’s easier to just punch [addresses] in,” Stoner said.
Brad DeLancey, the chief of Susquehanna Twp. EMS, said he’d love to purchase units for all of his ambulances, but he doesn’t have the money.
“Unfortunately, smaller companies have smaller budgets, and the question is where the money should be spent,” DeLancey said. “We bill just to keep our ambulances on the streets.”
DeLancey said he believes that the devices could save lives.
“Any time you save a minute getting to an accident or emergency is helpful to the patient,” he said.