THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507240029
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Thanks to a relatively inexpensive computer program and a shift in how the city's rescue workers are trained and deployed, people who are shot, suffer a heart attack or fall gravely ill have a better chance of surviving here than in years past.
Ambulances now get to Norfolk homes twice as fast as they did four years ago and bring patients to hospitals three times quicker than they did a decade ago.
Today, it takes a Norfolk ambulance an average of six minutes to get to a rescue call. In 1991, it took 13 minutes. A paramedic crew will average seven minutes to get into and out of a house. In 1984, the average was 22 minutes.
Such time savings are crucial, officials say.
``It can make the difference between life and death,'' said Dr. Charles J. Devine III, operational medical director of the city's fire and paramedical service.
Depending on the type of injury, having an ambulance arrive in six minutes instead of 12 or 13 can be critical, Devine said. A person having a heart attack might well live or die depending on how fast the paramedics arrive.
``Minutes count,'' he said.
The improved response time and training may have even helped the city's crime statistics.
``The homicide rate in Norfolk would be considerably higher,'' said paramedic chief Donald Haupt, had the changes not occurred, helping save severely wounded victims.
A variety of things account for the improvement, but most have not required more people or a bigger budget. They include better equipment, new forms of training and a reorganization of the department.
The most important change came four years ago, when the city's roughly 75 paramedics and 400 firefighters merged to form a combined service with one director. It is the only combined fire and paramedic crew in South Hampton Roads.
Since then, personnel have been cross-trained so that most now fight fires and perform emergency medical care.
The more efficient use of people enabled the city to double the number of ambulances from five to 10 without increasing workers. Norfolk now boasts that it has the largest professional combined department between Washington and Charlotte, fielding some 60,000 emergency calls annually.
``Whether you're having a baby, been shot, or got a fire, we can take care of it,'' said Ronald T. Wakeham, director of the combined department. ``It's one-stop shopping.''
The reorganization has made possible other changes that have improved service.
Paramedic crews are now assigned to one fire station on a long-term basis instead of rotating among the city's 14 stations. With home territories, crews get to know their neighborhoods and learn the shortcuts into and out of particular neighborhoods, say city officials.
The dispatching system has been improved. A $500 computer program called FLAME, which functions with a personal computer, let the department divide the city into more than 600 sectors, which are then coordinated with a computerized mapping program.
Now when the city gets an emergency call, the computer tells the dispatcher which sector the call is from and which rescue squad to send. The program considers stoplights along the route, expected traffic and other details.
The quicker response times led to other changes.
Until recently, both fire engines and ambulances responded to most emergency calls. This was, in part, because fire crews' response time was usually quicker, and because more personnel were needed for advanced lifesaving work.
But with the improvement of ambulance response time, only an ambulance and two-person crew are now being sent to some types of calls, including choking and loss of a limb. More people can be called if needed.
This frees up equipment and personnel for other emergencies, say city officials.
It is difficult to compare other cities' paramedic squads to Norfolk's. The other crews in South Hampton Roads vary tremendously both in their organization and in the terrain they cover.
Virginia Beach has an all-volunteer rescue squad, of which citizens are immensely proud. Portsmouth contracts with a private service. Chesapeake has professional paramedics who are separate from firefighters. Suffolk has two crews that serve the city's separate geographic sectors. Merging the rescue squads to create a Hampton Roads paramedic service makes some sense on paper, Wakeham said, because it would be easier to coordinate crews with hospitals and roads.
But the crucial ``esprit de corps'' is still developed city by city, and that would be difficult to change, Wakeham said. ``I don't expect to see it in my lifetime.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration
by CNB