Recent efforts have helped make ambulance response time faster in Dane County and cities on the Madison periphery.

Melanie Conklin, communications director to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said the ability to remove even seconds of response time is considered a success.

A pilot program started in Dane County has been able to take seven minutes off of ALS ambulance response time. ALS response is for the most serious cases when a patient has stopped breathing or has had a heart attack.

Conklin said the seven-minute removal is “a phenomenal response.”

Participating EMS units in Madison and Middleton, as well as those in the towns of Madison and Fitch-Rona, began the pilot program in June 2003.

Dane County invested $50,000 into data collection of the pilot program as well as upgrading the training and software utilized by 911 dispatchers. The new pilot program allows the first ambulance in the area, no matter what the region it hails from, to respond to the situation.

“The program basically blurs the jurisdiction lines,” Conklin said. “The blending of city and county services has allowed ALS ambulances to take more than seven minutes off of response.”

Cieslewicz has been working at regional ambulance cooperation since he took office, and he wants to see what kind of service can be improved by an ALS support area, Conklin said.

Ald. Austin King, District 4, said he has supported this type of countywide program since Cieslewicz first introduced the plan.

“It’s a way for ambulance services to reach out to people whose heart attacks don’t respect their municipal bounders,” King said. “And it saves lives.”

King said the city and county still have to work out some cost figures in covering the program.

“I’d like to see the suburbs pitch in their fair share [to cover this program], but I’m not about to be a financial tightwad when it comes to saving lives,” King said.

Conklin said the city of Madison EMS was often responding to a number of calls outside of city jurisdiction, which were then subsidized.

She said the subsidization was “not fair to Madison taxpayers” and that the new response system is both better at responding and is more equitable for the city.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk also has supported the program.

“Our goal was to get help to people faster by working together,” Falk said in a release. “We did it, and our citizens are seeing real benefits. We’ve cut the time for EMS response; we’ve made a strong EMS system in our county even better.”

Conklin said all citizens of Dane County would prosper from this type of ambulance pilot program.

“When you need an ambulance, it could be there faster, including the downtown area,” Conklin said. “If an ambulance downtown is out on the east or west side, you may have a Fitchburg ambulance going through the downtown that can pick up the call.”

Conklin said the program is helpful to students but also “everyone, everywhere in the city.”

The mayor hopes to establish a permanent program after discussion and continued monitoring of the program. A data collection committee currently reviews and analyzes the data from the pilot program.

King said the city would continue to explore the program options, especially when the benefits from regional and city cooperation save lives.