TheLos Angeles Timesanalyzed more than a million dispatches from the Los Angeles (CA) Fire Department’s database and found that the department falls short of the standard that rescue units be alerted within one minute on 90 percent of 911 calls.
TheTimesreport (http://lat.ms/MrovB0) says that average dispatch call processing time has increased, especially for medical calls–the majority of fire department responses.
Five years ago, firefighters were dispatched to medical calls within a minute 38 percent of time, according to the analysis. By 2011, that number dropped to only 15 percent. In the more than 250,000 medical dispatches last year, the department took 75 percent longer, on average, than the national standard.
Read more on theTimesanalysis at http://lat.ms/MrovB0.
