City Controllers office releases audit of Pittsburgh's EMS

City Controller Michael Lamb released an audit of Pittsburgh's Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and found that the city's EMS were meeting desired response times in priority calls at 60% compared to the national standard of 90%. Standard response time is below 9 minutes after the emergency call is placed The audit also found that Unit hour Utilization (UHU), which is the ratio of number of hours spent delivering EMS service as compared to total number of hours a system could deliver is higher that national standards. The acceptable levels for UHU are between .40 Unit hours - .50 Unit hours. The audit found the UHU for the city at .54 in 06, and .56 in 07.

Lamb cited high volume of non emergency calls as the problem for the EMS, and has contacted local health care and service providers with the recommendation of creating and instituting a program that informs the public on what constitutes an emergency health need. Lamb said the city did not need to hire more EMS personnel or have more units available because if non emergency calls decreased then the current number on the force would be appropriate. Pittsburgh's EMS is operating under act 47 guidelines.