Emergency Medical Services in Cheektowaga - Existing Conditions and Options for the Future

CGR was engaged by the Town of Cheektowaga to evaluate its emergency medical services system including its communications department, the eleven fire departments that provide an EMS response and the primary commercial ambulance provider, AMR. The project involved an extensive set of interviews, visiting each operational location and data gathering from multiple sources. Key findings include that the fully volunteer fire departments respond to about 21 calls per day (including both fire and EMS calls) and AMR responds to about 27 calls per day. There are staffing challenges for paid positions at the 911 center and AMR. Several of the volunteer fire departments also indicate that they are seeing reduced numbers of volunteers and lower activity from the existing volunteers. There are over 400 volunteer firefighters and more than a quarter of them are certified EMS providers. The agreement between AMR and the Town has expired before the project began, but AMR continued to provide service based on those terms. CGR provided a series of recommendations focused on immediate opportunities and longer-term options. The Town implemented additional training for the 911 Center staff and revised some operational procedures to improve responses. The Town was given a series of recommendations to consider when they renegotiate their agreement with AMR for ambulance service, suggested revisions to Town Code related to EMS and a recommendation to hire a single medical director for all fire departments. The project suggested that the fire departments establish minimum levels of training for response, focus the types of calls they respond to, and consider changes of procedure to lead to more efficient response. The project discussed potential long-term options for the Town to consider improving EMS including creating a town operated BLS first response service and different potential ambulance scenarios.

Report Date: May 2024
Author(s): Paul Bishop , Katherine Bell , Deon Willis
Subject(s): Operational/Service Analysis , Financial/Budgetary Analysis
Location: Erie, New York

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