Wake County's EMS department is planning to change how it responds to emergency calls.
By 2026, EMS director Jon Studnek wants EMS vehicles to only use sirens and red lights for the most critical calls. This would include responses to shootings, severe motor collisions, and events where someone's heart stops.
Studnek said his department's current response model treats almost all calls like they are time-critical. In reality, only about 20% are.
"We know that lights and sirens use is very dangerous and puts our employees at risk," Studnek told the Wake County Board of Commissioners this week. "Oftentimes, it puts them at risk unnecessarily relative to the type of call that they are responding to."
There have been 21 EMS accidents involving emergency lights this year. No one was critically injured, but two EMS vehicles were totaled.
Studnek said other North Carolina EMS departments have already limited the use of lights and sirens in their response models. Charlotte-Mecklenburg's department, he said, saw a 33% decrease in crashes after doing so.
At the board meeting, Commissioner Shinica Thomas asked how the switch impacted Charlotte's EMS response times. Studnek said he would have to consult his colleagues for the figures.
Currently, Wake County's average response times fall between 15 to 17 minutes. Under the new model, Studnek told commissioners the goal would be to address "low acuity" cases in less than 60 minutes.
These "non-time critical interventions" could range from slips and falls, fainting, to broken bones.
"What our goal is, instead of having one round bucket for everybody to be in, is to have targets for those that are most severely ill and those that are least," Studnek said. "So that we can be reliable within that. It's probably not appropriate for someone to be on the far side of that average if they have a critical emergency that needs a life-saving intervention."
When asked if the new response plan would lower Wake County's 15- to 17-minute average, Studnek told commissioners the project is aimed at improving reliability – not overall response times.
"We don't have a reliability target around our highest priority calls," Studnek said. "And so, we should be 90% reliable at less than 12 minutes and 59 seconds to our highest priority calls. That is our reliability goal when we implement this plan."
Thomas asked if this goal defined a timely response for all calls. Studnek said to his knowledge, there wasn't one.
The EMS department will be collecting feedback on the model and plans to fully implement it by March.
