Los Angeles County reduces Squad automatic responses

Paramedic Squad not dispatched to "Sick-BLS" and "Injured-BLS"

Prior to July 1, 2016, every 9-1-1 EMS response in Los Angeles County would include a two-paramedic non-transporting squad along with the nearest fire company and private ambulance.

Goal 4: Operational Effectiveness of the 2015-2017 Strategic Plan included this:

Reduce the daily number of advanced life support/paramedic responses by correctly aligning the need with the appropriate resource through tiered dispatching of two Dispatch call types, “sick” and “injury.”  (page 8)

This was not done in isolation, the May 2o16 message from Fire Chief Daryl L. Osby included this:

Among those achievements, the Department hired a permanent Medical Director, improved relations with the EMS Agency, implemented electronic patient care records, revamped the quality improvement program, completed back-logged EMS report scanning and became the first fire department to go live with the implementation of the Safety Intelligence Risk Management Software tool.

The department noted that EMS calls increased 12.8 percent between 2013 to 2014, totaling 277,122 incidents, representing 73% of the fire department responses.

LACoFD_workload_2013_2014