Town of Cheektowaga Emergency Medical Services Study

CGR was engaged by the Town of Cheektowaga to evaluate its emergency medical services system including its communications department, the 11 fire departments that provide an EMS response and the primary commercial ambulance provider, AMR. The fully volunteer fire departments respond to about 21 calls per day and AMR responds to about 27 calls per day, and across the board, labor and volunteer shortages are impacting the availability of service. These include staffing challenges for paid positions at the 911 center and AMR and volunteer fire departments with reduced numbers of volunteers and lower activity from the existing volunteers. 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. These includes two that were quickly implemented: additional training for the 911 Center staff and revision of operational procedures to improve responses. CGR also provided considerations for when the Town renegotiates an 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. In addition, we 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. Long-term options include creating a Town-operated BLS first response service and potentially creating a Town ambulance service.

The report is available at https://bit.ly/EMSinCheektowaga-2024. For further information, please contact Paul Bishop.

August 8, 2024 CGR Briefs Edition