BALTIMORE — The Baltimore County Fire Department has implemented strategies for reducing hospital wait times, including the creation of a new "Medical Duty Officer" position to facilitate efficient movement of career and volunteer medic units.
The time required to offload patients to area hospitals has been growing due to an ongoing increase in medical calls and hospital staffing shortages.
The longer EMS crews must wait to deliver patients to the hospital, the longer it takes to get them back on the road, responding to other EMS calls.
"Baltimore County is a really large jurisdiction, we transport anywhere up to 14 hospitals a day so the opportunity to be able to spread that wealth throughout the hospitals while providing good patient care and getting patients the care they need in the time they need it is really whats important," said Bureau Chief Danielle Knatz.
The Medical Duty Officer will oversee the daily movement of Career and Volunteer medic units and monitor the capacity of receiving hospitals.
They will maintain a "bird's eye view" of the hospital/EMS situation and direct EMS units accordingly.
On April 2, they will implement a Medical Duty Officer at the 911 Dispatch Center.
The program will consist of two officers, in the future, they hope to have between 10 and 15 officers to run the operation smoothly.
