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donttouchthirdrail t1_j9qo916 wrote

Reply to comment by aguafiestas in FDNY wants to up the cost of ambulance rides by more than 50% by NYY657545

How is 1/9th of the city getting an ambulance ride. That’s an insane number

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aguafiestas t1_j9qoutv wrote

It is a very high number, but it probably has a smaller number of individuals getting multiple transports.

Looking a little more closely, I think this includes more than emergency ambulance transports. It says there are 1,121 "total 9-1-1- ambulance tours" per day, which rounds out to 409,165 per year. Which is a lot, but also a lot less than the 1,092,752 "hospital transports" listed. So that larger number presumably includes non-emergency transports (and potentially lower levels of care than a full ambulance).

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Erazmuz t1_j9qvhr4 wrote

You're misinterpreting what that means. Of the 1,425,719 reported calls for "medical emergencies", 1,092,752 resulted in a transport to the hospital.

FDNY does not provide non-emergency interfacility transport service. In New York City, non-emergency ambulance services are provided by private ambulance companies or a hospital's own EMS department.

It actually is that busy. It's not that a ninth of the population uses an ambulance a year, there are just some individuals who are hyper-utilizers.

Anecdotally, every paramedic or EMT will have regulars that we know very well. These are individuals often with poor healthcare literacy and chronic conditions that they are either unable or unwilling to address in a more appropriate setting than an ER. Then there's also the regular drunks, homeless people just trying to get a bed and a sandwich, you get the idea.

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aguafiestas t1_j9qymra wrote

Then what do you think is the discrepancy between their being over twice as many “hospital transports” as “9-1-1 ambulance tours?” Ambulance rides that start with something other than an emergency call?

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Erazmuz t1_j9r44vs wrote

An ambulance tour is a shift, not a transport. For whatever reason, it's always been called a tour. Units run for either 8 or 12 hour tours. It's just referring to how many units are run. Any unit will do multiple calls a tour.

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twozerothreeeight t1_j9uhjck wrote

"ambulance tours" is an indication of the amount of units on the road. FDNY or hospital based 911 ambulances work, AFAIK, 8 or 12 hour tours. So a unit that is scheduled for 3 8 hour tours, that is actually in service for those tours, would be credited for 3 per day, or at total of 1095 per year.

I know it sounds weird, but when I worked in EMS they treated the different tours like they were entirely separate units. Performance metrics were measured and reported per individual tour.

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DirtySkell t1_j9tf0ww wrote

I can personally name at least 5 patients of mine whom go to the hospital via ambulance at least 5 times a week. It's usually not even with the Fire Department but a voluntary ambulance instead which I believe isn't included in that cited metric.

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