Emergency response times in the Valley have been cut nearly in half

MAT-SU -- One year ago, if a Valley resident dialed 911 and needed an ambulance to respond, chances were they'd be waiting nearly 20 minutes for the ambulance to just leave the station. In some cases, 20 minutes can mean the difference between life and death, or in the case of a stroke, normal life and life severely limited because the body has suffered a prolonged lack of oxygen.

But times have changed. In one year, the average response time has dropped by more than half, from 18 minutes to fewer than eight and, in some cases, it's less than two minutes between the time emergency dispatchers send out a page and an amublance is rolling out of the station.

The change, according to the borough's interim Emergency Services director, Jack Krill, is largely due to changes the borough assembly made to his department. When the borough worked through its budget for this fiscal year last spring, the borough manager proposed, and the assembly supported, an area-wide shakeup of the emergency services department. Area emergency services and fire department officials are now more accountable for setting and managing their budgets, managing their stations and for general operations relating to services in their area.

"A major portion of it is the shift in the way the organizational structure is designed, to delegate more authority," Krill said.

Another big help, Krill said, was the added funding for staff. Busy stations like Central Mat-Su now have funding for at least three people to be at the station, on call, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

"Not all of them are staffed seven days a week, 24 hours a day, but they're doing different types of shift scheduling," Krill said. Some departments, such as those in the northern borough area, will have more staffing available during busy summer hours when area streams are flush with anglers. "What's happened, I think, is that the volunteers have risen to meet the expectations of the borough assembly, borough manager and mayor."

With the help of a new volunteer coordinator, about 50 people have signed on with the borough emergency services department. Training programs are being quickly scheduled to help move the new people into positions of service, Krill said. And to help keep people interested, Krill said new benefits programs are constantly being evaluated. Retirement program benefits are being considered, Krill said, and a benefit program is now in place that allows the part-time employees to set aside nearly 7 percent of their monthly compensation. That money, Krill said, is matched by the borough and set aside in an interest-bearing account. Benefits such as those, Krill said, award responders who give more of their time.

"The more they participate, the higher the contribution," Krill said. "We're always looking for different incentive programs to attract and retain responders."

Although the initial numbers show the changes to the program are paying off in more effective service, Krill said more analyses are on the way. These numbers, he said, only show the changes to the program in the first three months after the changes were instituted. Future analyses will include response times during winter weather, he said, and delays due to road conditions may show up in the response times.

Krill added that the existing calculations did not take into account how long it took for responders to travel from the station to the caller or site of the incident. Future calculations, he said, will be looking at how long it takes responders to get from the station to the patient.

Ultimately, Krill said, growth is the biggest obstacle now facing responders in his department. Between 1,700 and 1,800 calls were logged so far for the first half of the fiscal year, and nearly half of those went to the Wasilla responding area. Although the changes made to the emergency services department have been a step in the right direction, it's likely not the last step in the journey.

"As calls increase, the load we placed on our available responders increases," Krill said. "A lot of those people have a full-time job, too."