DeKalb County approves $3.8 million for more ambulance services, citing ‘Dunwoody Model’

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County approved $3.8 million in the 2024 budget to add a variety of new medical staff and ambulance services.

The funding, which was approved in February, allowed them to hire an additional 15 EMTs and paramedics, five more nurse practitioners and add five ambulances to improve service delivery.

Now, the county says working with the City of Dunwoody to create a supplemental ambulance service in the city limits, managed by vendor American Medical Response in 2019, has improved response times significantly.

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The city first appealed to the Georgia Department of Public Health - Emergency Medical Services in 2018, asking for approval to hire their own service to improve emergency response times.

“Dunwoody Mayor Lynn Deutsch and the Dunwoody City Council voted to be the first city in DeKalb to take advantage of an opportunity provided in DeKalb County’s 2019 contract with AMR to secure supplemental ambulance service in its corporate limits,” officials said.

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Calling it the “Dunwoody Model,” the county said EMS response times improved by more than five minutes over just six months, from a 14:10 average between Sept. 16 to Dec. 14, 2023 to a 9:35 average from Dec. 15, 2023 to April 12, 2024.

As part of the model, the city of Dunwoody pays $566,000 per year to contract ambulance services in the city limits for 12 hours a day during peak service times, between 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., officials said.

Similar to Dunwoody’s adjustments and supplemental plan, another DeKalb County city is hoping to get their own ambulance service.

The city of Brookhaven announced Thursday they’d also be petitioning state officials to let them manage their own ambulance service, citing delayed responses as long as an hour during recent months.

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