Ambulance response time challenged

Monday, Nov. 8, 1999 | 9:27 a.m.

A potential competitor claims the Las Vegas Valley's major ambulance service is using excuses to cover up problems with its response time.

According to its contract, in 90 percent of emergencies American Medical Response must respond in under nine minutes.

If there is a valid excuse AMR does not have to report late arrivals in its statistics, said Sharon Henry, who is trying to launch Southwest Ambulance a potential competitor to AMR. Henry claims it is left to AMR to determine what constitutes a valid excuse.

Henry says it impossible to evaluate AMR's on-time record because of this loophole.

Area emergency officials say there's no cause for concern.

"I don't think there is a concerted effort to use the exemptions to make them (AMR) come into compliance," Las Vegas Fire Department Deputy Chief Ken Riddle told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Still, since April or May of this year there has been a "noticeable upswing" in the number of exemptions AMR has taken, said Jim Spinello, the Clark County staffer in charge of franchise agreements, including that of AMR.

The reason for that is unclear, Spinello said.

AMR's Director of Operations, Ed Zdobinski, said exemptions have gone up proportionately to the increase in calls.

Henry said she has found otherwise. AMR will not provide Southwest with its summary monthly reports on call response. The company did release to its potential competitor daily reports - what Henry calls "raw data" - that show individual calls and response times. According to her, call volume in the areas AMR is responsible for has increased 18 percent since the spring, but the number of cases in which an explanation for a late arrival was offered rose 37 percent.

American Medical Response declined to release the summary reports or information on exactly where any of the calls and the late arrivals went, claiming they were proprietary information that could be used by competitors.

Brian K. Rogers, AMR's operations manager, claims releasing the information would essentially give a potential competitor a blue print on running ambulance service in the valley.

Southwest wants that information because "the way the community has grown we were suspicious there were probably pockets of consistently underserved areas," Henry said.

The district attorney's office expects to decide within weeks whether those documents, which are provided to local governments, can be made public.