By Jim McKay
Government Technology
ATLANTIC CITY, Iowa 鈥� Atlantic City, Iowa, in Cass County, is located halfway between Des Moines and Omaha, Neb., which is to say there is a lot of open space there.
And that鈥檚 a problem when it comes to law enforcement, fire and EMS responding to 911 calls. For EMS, it takes an average of 32 minutes for an ambulance 鈥� there is one full-time ambulance service 鈥� to get to a call. But a pilot program is showing promise in getting help to some of those calls within five minutes.
The enlists volunteers who are on standby and equipped with basic first aid gear to help on EMS calls, like heart attacks, lacerations, falls and the like. The volunteers are plugged into a software program called , which works through the county鈥檚 911 system and filters the calls that aren鈥檛 serious enough to need immediate attention from police, fire or EMS.
鈥淲ith NowForce, we can add and subtract certain calls,鈥� said Erik Johnson, Cass County program coordinator. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not going to motor vehicle accidents or domestic violence or fight calls. Grandma or Grandpa falls down, they live alone, that鈥檚 when these volunteers show up and reassure these individuals that help is on the way.鈥�
The 18 volunteers each have completed a training course, which takes about eight hours, and are equipped with a go bag that includes AEDs and stop-the-bleed kits. When a call comes into 911 it is run through a computer-aided dispatch system and the calls are filtered to notify a volunteer in proximity to the 911 caller.
Johnson monitors the calls through Google Maps. His volunteers show up as little people icons and he sees who responds to a 911 call and tracks their progress to and from a location.
The volunteer, through their cellphone, fills out the questionnaire with information such as the nature of the injury, the equipment used in treating the injury and a narrative of the incident.
Cass County is one of three counties, including Van Buren and Calhoun , taking part in the pilot.
鈥淪ince we started, I can鈥檛 really say that it鈥檚 been life saving,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 impacted lives because these individuals don鈥檛 have to wait for a call, someone is there between three and five minutes, depending on where they are.鈥�
The key, Johnson said, is the availability of the volunteers. 鈥淭hese individuals are out on the roads, are retired at home, at the grocery store, they pass by an incident, and they can turn around and respond. They can respond to their neighbors.鈥�
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