Cooperation, Software Speed EMS in Northern San Diego

A faster way to dispatch emergency calls in North County is reducing response times for firefighters and paramedics by as much as six minutes, a critical savings in medical emergencies and large fires.

The new process involves better use of computers and personnel to relay information from callers to the fire station closest to the emergency. It has been in operation for five months along the San Diego city limits from Lake Hodges to Del Mar.

"It's been a great improvement, so far," said Rancho Santa Fe Fire Chief Nick Pavone. "We had a few bugs at first, but we got them out."

Pavone and San Diego Fire-Rescue Chief Tracy Jarman are among those getting credit for the new process. They had to untangle jurisdictional red tape, smooth political feathers and marry incompatible technologies.

Fire officials throughout the county are impressed with the operation and are trying to expand it to other jurisdictions where communication and coordination among fire agencies also contribute to slow response times.

"This is something to build on for the entire county," Jarman said.

A first meeting among several agencies to discuss expansion was held last month.

Other communities and cities that border San Diego and respond to mutual aid, answering emergency calls for one another, include Santee, La Mesa, El Cajon, Bonita, Chula Vista, National City and Imperial Beach. Those communities also experience slow response times when multiple fire agencies are involved.

Communication problems that long plagued the region's 65 fire agencies were exposed during the devastating wildfires of 2003. Fire departments could not communicate with each other and computer-aided dispatch systems were not compatible.

The new system has another potential benefit.

It could help San Diego's fire department receive national accreditation, a ranking the agency has been striving to obtain for years. Tardy response times have hampered attempts. Accreditation can help set fire insurance rates and determine whether departments receive federal grants.

At times, summoning emergency help has been painstakingly slow. In this age of high-speed high-tech, emergency personnel relied mostly on low-tech -- the familiar telephone.

After San Diego city dispatchers received an emergency call, the information was put into a computer. Then a phone call would be made to other county fire stations to learn if emergency crews were available to handle a call, and a dispatcher would give the location of the emergency and necessary details of the call.

Under usual conditions, where computers are coordinated and do all the work, the calls are seamless and instant.

However, computers used by various agencies under mutual-aid pacts were not compatible and could not network, said San Diego Fire-Rescue Department communications manager Susan Infantino.

"It would take up to six minutes to make some of the calls and pass along the information the old way," Infantino said. "That kind of delay can make the difference between life and death."

She said there were often slow-response calls along the northern border of San Diego.

"Just about every day we had such calls," Infantino said.

The response times were considered so unacceptable that fire officials often joked that it would be faster in some areas for residents to run to a nearby fire station than to call 911 and wait.

The delays went on for years. Solutions were thought too costly and complex: build more fire stations, hire more firefighters or coordinate many competing fire agencies.

The situation hit hard a few years ago for some developers planning to build houses in areas such as Black Mountain Ranch and 4S Ranch, where fire stations are few and far between.

Developers were told by San Diego city planning officials that the only solution to permit them to build was to install sprinklers in each unit.