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State of Emergency

Number 23874
Subject Health
Source Westword (Denver)
State CO
Year 2008
Publication Date 06/03/2008
Summary The story revealed how, for the past decade, Denver Health has been able to systematically lobby the Mayor's office to lower the ambulance response time standards in the operating agreement the hospital keeps with the city. Even as call volume has increased significantly year by year, the contractual changes have enabled the hospital to stay in response time compliance without adding more paramedics and ambulances. This series also showed how the hospital was deleting a key chunk of call duration from the figures being reported to the city, in violation of the municipal agreement. The city's actual ambulance response times vastly underperform nationally accepted standards. Veteran Denver Health paramedics say the increasing delays in emergency response have dire consequences.
Category Contest Entry
Pages 0
Keywords ambulance response times; municipal agreement; ambulances; Denver; hospital; slow ambulance response
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