§ 6-12 — Ambulance response time performance required

§ 6-12. - Ambulance response time performance required.

(a) EMSA, any operations contractor, or any supplemental service provider shall employ sufficient personnel, acquire sufficient equipment, and manage its resources as necessary to meet the following response time standards on all emergency calls and non-emergency calls originating within the regulated service area. (1) Response time standards for the Eastern Division beneficiary member jurisdiction and Western Division beneficiary member jurisdictions. On the effective date of this Code, subject to the exclusions set forth in Subsection (c) below, the following standards of response time reliability shall be applicable to all patient transports originating from within the Eastern Division beneficiary member jurisdiction and the combined Western Division beneficiary and non-beneficiary jurisdiction of the regulated service area: standard | reliability percent priority 1 | 90 reliability or better priority 2 | 90 reliability or better priority 3 | 90 reliability or better priority 4 | 90 reliability or better (2) Response time standards for the non-beneficiary member jurisdictions of the Eastern Division. On the effective date of this Code, subject only to the exclusions set forth in Subsection (c) below, the following standards of response time reliability shall be applicable to all patient transports originating within a non-beneficiary member jurisdiction in the Eastern Division: Priority 1 and 2 standard | 75% minimum during each month in each individual non-beneficiary member jurisdiction priority 1 and 2 transports combined, and a 90% minimum during each month for combined priority 1 and priority 2 transports within the combined non-beneficiary jurisdictions. Priority 3 standard | 90% reliability or better during each month Priority 4 standard | 90% reliability or better during each month (b) Three sub-areas defined by EMSA in the area comprising the Eastern Division beneficiary jurisdiction and the three sub-areas defined by EMSA in the area comprising the Western Division for compliance measurement for priority 1 transports and discrimination. EMSA, any operations contractor, or any supplemental service provider, shall use best efforts to ensure response time equity for priority 1 transports among sub-areas, keeping response times in each sub-area within ten percentage points of the compliance required for the entire jurisdiction. Variations of ten percentage points or more from the jurisdiction standards within the same sub-area for more than three consecutive months, or more than six months during any 12-month period, shall be considered chronic response time discrimination and shall give rise to the provisions of the Amended and Restated EMS Interlocal Cooperation Agreement and the Amended and Restated Trust Indenture which provide beneficiary member jurisdictions certain options to address such response time discrimination with EMSA. (c) Response time exclusions. EMSA shall employ such mechanisms for reserve production capacity, including the use of any operations contractor or any supplemental service provider, to increase production should a temporary system overload persist. However, it is understood that from time-to-time unusual factors beyond EMSA's reasonable control may affect the achievement of specified response time standards. These unusual factors are limited to unusually severe weather conditions, or declared disasters.

(Code 1980, § 6-111; Ord. No. 19392, § 1, 4-3-90; Ord. No. 20997, § 1, 2-17-98; Ord. No. 27211, § 1, 11-8-22, eff. 12-1-22)