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CamTin

It is more honest to keep the comparison either between absolute numbers or percentages:

7% of emergency calls made by 0.16% of people

4,288 of 62,763 emergency calls made by 100 people

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Does it include things like head of a shopping mall calling for emergencies with customers?

I think you might have a decimal off. 100/62763 = .0016 = 0.16%

You're correct, of course. Updated and fixed.

To further illustrate: On average that's about 44 calls per person, or a 911 call made by one of those 100 people every week or sometimes two, given that these numbers were over the course of a year.

I have a friend dying of congestive heart failure. He'll be dead within a year. But in the meantime, he calls 911 a lot. Not sure what the solution is supposed to be here. A lot of these calls are perfectly legitimate and not the result of anyone "abusing" the system. Some people have more medical problems than others.

Perhaps there needs to be a different solution for these kinds of people. There's probably a way of addressing your friend's needs more effectively and also not taking up dispatcher time.

Years ago, I remember seeing infomercials for a neck worn alert button that folks could use in an emergency (for instance, a fall) that would bring assistance. This seems like a natural solution for someone with chronic health issues that regularly requires emergency services (though not so frequently that they need in-patient care).

Ideally, emergency responders would be linked to the patient's healthy data so the verbal exchange via 911 is less necessary.

Yes, 911 should be for emergencies i.e. unexpected, unplanned critical events. Somebody with a chronic condition should have either regular home visits or be in a care facility.

It's still unplanned, since you don't know when it's going to happen; a home visit might leave 10 minutes before you need help.

As for care facilities, if the need isn't that common (e.g. once a week), is that really more effective than an occasional ambulance trip? Plus the patient might very well prefer to spend his last year as close to his family as possible.

I think the cost could well be close. Here, if you call 911 for a medical emergency you will get a police patrol car, an ambulance, and a fire truck dispatched in most cases. That's at least three vehicles and at least half a dozen people.

If this is happening once a week then it really seems there ought to be a better way to handle it.

Edit: if you also assume that an ambulance dispatch is usually followed by an ER trip, the cost balloons even more. Seems really hard to think that a 911 dispatch followed by an ER trip once a week is the best way to handle a chronically ill person at home.

I don't know the exact rules but in the UK, when calling 999 you're asked which service you require. Fire service will only get police involved when they need it or automatically when more than 2 Fire Engines are dispatched. Ambulance calls can result in an Ambulance with a crew of 2 or a single paramedic in a sensible estate car (station wagon) with a big engine, they'll call the Air Ambulance if they need one and it's free. Dispatchers will send who they think you need as they see fit. That includes Lifeboat Service or Mountain Rescue. Or Police, of course. Each service will obviously ask for backup as required.

The BIG difference with what you've described though is the layout of the UK is much denser than USA. The resources available and the nature and frequency of call outs will obviously be quite different.

How much would they save if they bought the fire department a Prius for responding to medical calls?

Chronic conditions can flare up unexpectedly. Just so you know.

Care facilities are warehouses for the old and ill. There is no care there — they just call 911.

Home visits are great for physical therapy or protocol based care. But again, they call 911 when anything significant happens.

Each individual event is unplanned and urgent (life-threatening). But he has a lot of events. He spends a few days in intensive care, gets stabilized, gets sent home, and then is fine for a while... until something happens. There are lots of people in similar situations, i.e. a person with life-threatening allergies, compromised immune systems, etc. Modern medical care means that there are more people skating closer to the edge of death than there once were.

I live next to an elderly acute care facility. There's an ambulance outside every day when I drive or ride my bike past.

Since the population of Milwaukee is around 600k, that should be 0.016% of people.

Or you should say something like 'of people who made emergency calls'

edit: that second one is still problematic since we only a couple data points on the distribution of calls per capita.

How did you get 1.6%?

its not more or less dishonest, they are the exact same numbers

The original title does not give information on the total number of people, only the 100.

the number of people are irrelevant, 100 people making 4000+ calls to emergency services is outstanding regardless of the size of the population or the time period.

That's 40 calls a year about once a week. If those are homes with many seniors that might not be too shocking. Big malls might have a call a week or concert arenas.

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