• Dustin W Anderson, Harinder S Dhindsa, Wen Wan, and David Salot.
• 1Department of Emergency Medicine,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VirginiaUSA.
• Prehosp Disaster Med. 2015 Aug 1; 30 (4): 382-4.

BackgroundThe current Fire/Emergency Medical Services (EMS) model throughout the United States involves emergency vehicles which respond from a primary location (ie, firehouse or municipal facility) to emergency calls. Quick response vehicles (QRVs) have been used in various Fire/EMS systems; however, their effectiveness has never been studied.ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to determine if patient response times would decrease by placing an Advanced Life Support (ALS) QRV in an integrated Fire/EMS system.MethodsResponse times from an integrated Fire/EMS system with an annual EMS call volume of 3,261 were evaluated over the three years prior to the implementation of this study. For a 2-month period, an ALS QRV staffed by a firefighter/paramedic responded to emergency calls during peak call volume hours of 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. The staging of this vehicle was based on historical call volume percentages using respective geocodes as well as system requirements during multiple emergency dispatches.ResultsPrior to the study, the citywide average response time for the twelve months preceding was 5.44 minutes. During the study, the citywide average response time decreased to 4.09 minutes, resulting in a 27.62% reduction in patient response time.ConclusionThe implementation of an ALS QRV in an integrated Fire/EMS system reduces patient response time. Having a QRV that is not staged continuously in a traditional fire station or municipal location reduces the time needed to reach patients. Also, using predictive models of historic call volume can aid Fire and EMS administrators in reduction of call response times.

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