News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The The Upper Cumberland Regional Consultant Office has completed an informal investigation into Pickett County EMS.
The investigation began after the State Office of Medical Service received multiple phones calls from citizens concerned about delays in dispatch time due to short staffing and unlicensed personnel being dispatched on emergency calls.
The consultant office investigated the claims using data collected from the electronic patient care report software to review a 60 day period prior to January 29th.
It revealed that Pickett EMS had duly licensed EMS personnel responding to calls. There were calls that had Basic Life Support crews rather than Advanced Life Support crews, but according to the investigation report, that is not against state rule.
“We don’t have a problem with that at all and it just assures the people in the county that Pickett County EMS is serving the people here,” County Executive Richard Daniel said. “One of the priorities over the last four years has been to improve the service and we’ve made great strides in doing that. We’re happy they came in and checked our records and found that there was really no valid complaints.”
In regards to delayed dispatch times during the 60 day period, the investigation found that the average time from notification of a call to the time an ambulance went in route was 2 minutes 40 seconds. Dispatch times from all of 2017 revealed that on average the time from notification of a call to the time an ambulance went in route was 2 minutes 36 seconds.
