AURORA, Colo. — Aurora Fire Rescue changed the way it responds to 911 calls when it rolled out “Right Response” on Wednesday.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, they try to better connect people who need help with the right resources. Before, every call got the same response. Now, they say they're able to match each call with the appropriate response.
“We’ve got a recruit academy and they’re pretty excited right now, because they’re getting ready to graduate in a couple weeks,” said Aurora Fire Rescue Chief Alec Oughton. “They spend about 20 weeks here learning the basic fundamentals of firefighting and emergency medical care.”
Oughton said he remembers when he was in their shoes.
“One of the challenges of the nation’s fire service is really a traditional approach, so 100 years of tradition unimpeded by progress,” he said.
But this week, that changed for Aurora Fire Rescue when the department rolled out “Right Response” on Wednesday.
“Right Response is really about sending the right resources to the call, at the right speed,” Oughton said.
Before, every call got the same response.
“The fire engine and lights and sirens to get to a call as quickly as we possibly can get there,” he said.
Now, different types of calls mean different responses.
“If you think about relatively minor calls for service, like chronic leg pain, or toe pain or cold and flu symptoms, they don’t necessarily require a 40,000 or 80,000-pound truck responding,” Oughton said.
In that case, they’ll drive in the normal traffic flow, in a 30-minute window.
“If you’re experiencing a life-threatening emergency, you will see the same response that we previously sent, lights and sirens, with a heavy unit either an engine or a ladder truck with paramedics on it and an ambulance responding to you emergently,” he said.
What’s not changing is the care from first responders when in need.
“"[Callers] are just nervous are they going to get the same care that I would provide, and I would assure they are,” Oughton said. “We have a high-quality partner in our emergency medical service system, we have amazing paramedics, we have amazing firefighters.”
The goal is to stop over-responding.
“Ever-responding creates a risk to the same extent as underspending does,” he said.
The Aurora Fire Rescue Chief says they ran about 57,000 calls in 2022.
The fewer times the trucks get sent out when they don’t need to, the better shape they stay in.
“It will improve the reliability of our system,” Oughton said. “10,000 runs that those fire trucks don’t have to run means they’re in service in their station, in their primary response area, ready to come to a high acuity emergency."
Instead, he said ready for compatible emergencies when called.
“System reliability is really important because there are call types where minutes matter,” he said. “In a cardiac arrest, you lose about 10% of your survivability profile for every minute that goes by without you getting CPR. A fire doubles in size every minute that it’s left unattended to. So if your closest engine or ladder track is not available for that kind of call when it comes in, it delays the response and bad things can happen as a result of that.”
Oughton says the crew is excited to use Right Response every day.
“I think it really brings us up to the national best practice and best standards and really moves us forward to better utilize our resources that we have,” he said.
Cutting back on lower-level emergencies like this is phase one of Right Response.
Phase two of Right Response will look at higher-level emergencies, and ways Aurora can add resources.
All phases are expected to be done in the next 12 months.
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