Audit reveals AMR's failure to meet response times, calls for accountability

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- A new report from the Multnomah County Auditor found that the county has the authority to hold American Medical Response accountable following low staffing and slow response times.

According to auditor Jennifer McGuirk, the investigation was initiated after a 2023 incident where a man in a wheelchair died after waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive after a hit-and-run.

Since then, officials said there have been several other incidents where AMR was operating at Code 0, meaning there was no response available.

“We published this report to support transparency related to the county’s issues with AMR,” said McGuirk. “It is critical that the county resolve the situation without delay so that people in our county experiencing medical emergencies can be confident an ambulance will arrive quickly when called.”

In the audit, the County Ombundsonperson looked at what was expected of AMR response times and found that since March 2022, AMR has been chronically underperforming.

AMR's compliance levels require that they respond in 8 minutes or less for urban areas and 20 minutes or less for rural areas 90% of the time. However, starting in March 2022, they were only making those times 87% of the time and by August it was as low as 74% of the time.

The county had the opportunity to address the issues with AMR before March 2022. According to the audit, in those situations, it is the county's role to contact AMR and give them 15 days to fix the issues. But in reviewing documents, they only found one corrective action plan from June 2022.

According to the investigation, it also wasn't clear how often the county received reports showing AMR's response times.

The audit also found that while an Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council was established in the county code in 2016 as a body to oversee medical services, the council was never formed and no members were ever appointed.

At the end of the audit, the Ombudsperson recommended that the Board of County Commissioners should receive reports on a regular basis that show ambulance response times, at least monthly for urban areas and every six months for rural areas.

They also recommended that an Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council should actually be formed and that a Emergency Medical Services Administrator should recommend members to the Board of County Commissioners to be appointed to the council.