HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla — Hillsborough County Fire Rescue (HCFR) is adding ambulances during peak hours to keep up with growing demand.
In an emergency, you can count on people like HCFR fire medic John Williams to respond.
“The influx of people, it generates more calls,” said Williams.
Williams lives in Apollo Beach and has seen just how many more people are calling Hillsborough County home.
“It’s growing rapidly,” said Williams. “Tampa Bay is a very popular area, but that also means that we have more calls to run.”
The county said the area’s growth has added to HCFR’s response times and put a strain on their first responders, who often go to up to 20 medical calls per shift in some of their busiest neighborhoods.
Now, HCFR is deploying five more reserve ambulances during peak hours.
Williams jumped at the opportunity to help.
“These are going to help cut down on our front-line units, so that they won’t be over-tasked or anything like that, and this’ll give us an opportunity to address some of those high impact areas quicker,” said Williams.
They’ll have three person crews working overtime to address growing demands on the medical teams, and each peak-hour ambulance will work a 12-hour shift.
The ambulances that will be used during these times are normally only used when a main ambulance is down for maintenance.
“85 percent of what we do is medical, so the ambulances have been very busy,” said Rob Herrin with HCFR.
The county said about two thirds of their ambulances operate at unsustainable levels of utilization, which slows response times. Officials also pointed to industry data, which they say shows ambulance crews in areas with unsustainably high utilization could experience burnout, leading to potential retention issues.
While the department isn’t seeing that, leaders said this is a proactive step.
“We kind of set the mark by an eight-minute response time for medical calls, that includes the time we receive the 911 call to the time the unit gets on your scene. It’s the same for fires,” said Herrin. “So these ambulances are now going to be on the road already moving, so that if a call comes into those areas, we should be getting there pretty quick.”
The agency will use data and analytics to determine where the ambulance will best be used. Right now, those five peak-hour ambulances are being deployed in Sun City Center, central Brandon, Riverview, Sabal Park, and the University area.
The reserve ambulances will start being used on May 1.
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