By David Fleet
dfleet@mihomepaper.com
Atlas Twp. — On Monday night Kolby Miller, Chief Executive Officer for Medstar Ambulance provided an annual report for Atlas Township.
In 2024 Medstar reported 424 responses in the township, with 247 or 58% non emergency and 177 or 42% emergency.
“Our industry is learning nationwide that our emphasis on response time, thinking faster is better using lights and sirens that driving around fast as we can go to get there was impacting patient outcome,” said Miller. “We are finding that it does not. We were creating significant risk.”
According to national data just 7% of the patients ambulances respond to “might” have a clinical condition that could be impacted by response time, he added.
“We’re carefully monitoring response times as one of our business metrics,” he said.
Miller reported the top response reasons were: Sick person followed by Unconscious, Falls-no injury, Difficulty Breathing, Psychiatric, Chest Pain and Falls-with injury.
“From a 911 perspective someone is not calling to say ‘someone is sick,’” he said. “It’s non-emergency and does not fit one of the specific categories.”
About 60% of the patients are transported non emergency, 7% are canceled en route, 27% are canceled on scene and just 6% are emergency transport.
The average emergency response time in Atlas Township is 8:48 minutes with the non-emergency response time 12:49 minutes.
“When we go ripping through intersections lights and sirens there’s a high probability of an accident involving the responding vehicles or created by the responding vehicles,” he said. “If you’re not careful we’ll kill someone on the way to a call where someone was not going to die anyway.”
The Medical Control Authority in Genesee County has recently rescinded their response time protocol.
“They are now leading Michigan,” he said.
Due to low call volume, Goodrich and Atlas Township depend on nearby private ambulance services from Grand Blanc and Davison in case of emergency. As a result, response times in emergency situations have been a concern for local officials for many years.
According to the report, Medstar received no service or clinical complaints in 2024. They also received a 97.1% positive patient satisfaction from the data.
In comparison, in 2021, prior to Medstar arriving, Genesee County 911 provided a two-year response time study. According to the report, of 32 communities Atlas Township had the 28th slowest response time, while the Village of Goodrich was 31st.
The 2021 report indicated, about 17% of the time an ambulance arrived in Atlas Township in less than 9 minutes and 43% of the time they responded in 13 minutes. In Goodrich, 14% of the time the response was less than 9 minutes, while 62% of the time the ambulance responded in 13 minutes or less.
Countywide in 2021 the response time was 9.25. The City of Mt. Morris, Burton and Flint Township reported the fastest response times in Genesee County was—about 8.2, according to the study.
Medstar is a not-for-profit organization owned by the McLaren Healthcare Corporation, Ascension-Michigan, and the Henry Ford Health System. The agency provides 911 EMS service ​for communities in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Lapeer, Bay, and Genesee Counties, as well as critical care, air medical, and interfacility transport throughout the region.