Ambulances failed to meet response times

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — American Medical Response, one of West Michigan’s main ambulance providers, acknowledges it did not meet response time standards in 2019 on some of the highest priority calls in urban areas.

“I can say before my time, we were not meeting our personal response times. We were not ‘up to snuff’ so to speak,” said John Robben, AMR’s regional director of operations.

“For too long we have tried to do too much with too little. So, we want to focus on our core customers — the largest of that being the Kent County Consortium and Grand Rapids,” said Robben, who took over as AMR regional director in July 2019. “We identified (problems) proactively, put in measures and have seen steady improvement. We’re not going to make excuses.”

Target 8 began investigating ambulance services in Kent County after receiving a tip in late 2019 that providers were not complying with response standards. Records obtained by Target 8 through the Freedom of Information Act confirmed delays.

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