The owner of a private ambulance service said now that Lake County's consolidated 911 service is operational, reconsidering how ambulances are dispatched should be considered. Gary Miller, CEO of Prompt Ambulance Service, points to the eastern edge of Merrillville.
E911 Director Brian Hitchcock said that operationally work at the E911 dispatch center is moving along well and most of the kinks that come along with a consolidated operation have been ironed out. He said the consolidation and its dispatchers have come under fire when it takes a long time for an ambulance to reach its destination, but reasons that the center has no control over response times once a call has been dispatched
A review of ambulance response times by the Post-Tribune in five of the busiest communities shows factors such as staffing levels, coverage area and the volume of calls at any given time can affect the time it takes for a person to receive care.
Communities reviewed, Crown Point, Hammond, Gary, Merrillville and East Chicago, were all high-volume call communities responsible for a section of state highway, and with other call drivers, such as shopping centers or industrial areas.
The data for March was provided by Hitchcock.
Hammond and Crown Point operate municipal ambulance service through their fire departments. Average response time in Hammond for the most serious of call types was for chest pain and took crews 6 minutes and 13 seconds to arrive, while it took 4 minutes and 55 seconds for full arrest, the report showed.