Paramedics Diana Brandt, left, and Scott Byous inspect emergency equipment as their ambulance idles outside the Grape Bowl on Wednesday while an unidentified trainee looks on from inside. Ambulances have been stationed all over the city on streets and in parking lots as part of strategic "posting locations" meant to speed up response time. (Scott Kaul/News-Sentinel)

'Highly effective method'

Paramedics say idling ambulances in Lodi are efficient, not lazy

Have you ever noticed ambulances around the city idling by the side of the road or in a parking lot? Perhaps you've seen paramedics seemingly lounging at one of Lodi's many coffee shops.

"We're out here every day," said American Medical Response paramedic Diana Brandt, while standing by an ambulance parked near the Grape Bowl recently. "From here we can get to people faster who need help."

Brandt and her partner, fellow paramedic Scott Byous, said they weren't just hanging out, but had been deployed at one of many strategic "posting locations" that put paramedics in position to reach emergencies as soon as possible.

"It drastically speeds up response time to do it this way," Byous said.

Placing the emergency vehicles around the city, rather than having them stationed at a fixed location like a fire station, allows the paramedic service to be much more effective, he said.

"It's a highly effective method for handling emergencies," said AMR spokesman Jason Sorrick.

Sorrick said ambulance crews are always stationed in public areas for safety reasons. They need to be highly visible to protect the crews, as well as the equipment and materials that need to be kept inside the ambulances.

"That's why you see them a lot of times at parks, stores or even the local Starbucks," he said.

Deciding where ambulances need to be positioned is complicated business. A computer-aided dispatch system, or CAD, computes past history and patterns of emergencies and figures out the best location for a response team to set up a staging area, Sorrick said.

"It allows the system to be very fluid," he said. "This way, ambulances aren't tied to specific locations or routes."

Posting locations are constantly updated, changing as often as daily or even hourly. The CAD monitors variables such as population, traffic patterns and accidents and positions ambulances accordingly. All ambulances are monitored by GPS, so when an emergency call comes in, the system can automatically decide which ambulance will be able to respond to an emergency in the shortest amount of time.

"It's very scientific," Sorrick said.

Lodi currently has four regular units that are stationed around the city, with additional units coming in from surrounding areas as needed, he said.

Brandt and Byous said they prefer the computer system than being dispatched from a central location.

"It allows us to get more familiar with the city," Brandt said. "And we can get to emergencies faster."

And although the posting location system costs far more than having a central dispatch location, Sorrick says that its effectiveness outweighs its cost.

"We want to be able to help people as quickly as possible," he said. "If it costs a little more, then so be it."

AMR plans to test pilot an advanced GPS system in Auburn that speeds up response time even further and gives ambulance drivers multiple route options, with street and location information updated every three minutes. If everything goes well, the system will be installed in ambulances nationwide.

"We may not be able to predict when and where an emergency will happen," he said. "But we'll be close to it."

First published: Wednesday, September 20, 2006