Tech Solution May Have Been Found For New York City 911 Emergency Response Time Delays To Roosevelt Island Says RIOC President - Input All 96 Addresses Into The System

 Image Of FDNY Ambulance on Roosevelt Island

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Acting President Susan Rosenthal reported yesterday to the June 23 RIOC Board of Directors meeting that after reaching out to the NYPD 911 Operations and Information Technology Departments, a technology software solution may have been found to fix the problem of NYC 911 emergency ambulance response time delays to Roosevelt Island.

As reported previously, NYC 911 Operators ask callers for Roosevelt Island cross streets before dispatching help to a Roosevelt Island resident, worker or visitor in need. The problem is that Roosevelt Island, unlike most of NYC, does not have cross streets, which causes confusion and delays in response time.

Ms Rosenthal said that as of yesterday, the technology solution proposed is to input:

... the 96 addresses on Roosevelt Island...

into the 911 system, so that:

... when one of those addresses come in, it will say Roosevelt Island...

and the 911 Operator will know where to dispatch the emergency vehicle.

Ms. Rosenthal added that we should know by next Tuesday, June 28, whether inputting the 96 Roosevelt Island addresses into the 911 system will solve this problem.

June 28 happens to be the date of a Roosevelt Island Town Hall meeting with NYC Council Member Ben Kallos, NY State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright and NY State Senator Jose Serrano where the issue of 911 emergency response time delays will be raised by concerned residents.

Below is the video of Ms. Rosenthal's President's Report to the RIOC Board which includes the 911 Emergency response discussion as well as info on:

• New Roosevelt Island Ferry Dock location (still to be determined),
• Hazardous seawall railings repair, 
• Cultural center repair, 
• New RIOC web site and
• July 4 Fireworks viewing registration.

Ms Rosenthal had previously sent this May 23,2016 letter about problems with Roosevelt Island 911 emergency response time to NYPD Chief of Community Affairs Joanne Jaffe:

Chief Jaffe,

As Acting President of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), I am writing to express my great concern regarding an incident that occurred on March 15, 2016, when a Roosevelt Island resident died of a heart attack while waiting for EMS to respond. When 911 was first contacted on that date, the operator insisted that the caller provide a cross-street, as the dispatch computer located Roosevelt Island in Queens County. The caller expressed that there was no cross street and that Roosevelt Island is located in Manhattan, but to no avail. Approximately fifteen minutes later, when EMS still had not arrived, 911 was contacted again, but by then, it was too late.

As you are aware, Roosevelt Island is situated in the East River of Manhattan, and though technically considered part of Manhattan, it is vehicle accessible by bridge from Long Island City. It also consists of a single roadway, known as Main Street and there are no cross streets on the Island.

The Chief of our Public Safety Department, John McManus, has been in contact with senior management at the Office of Emergency Management regarding this incident and he is coordinating a meeting with OEM, senior leadership of the New York City Police and Fire Departments, and the New York City Emergency Medical Service, to discuss this matter further and to prevent the event described above, from happening in the future.

I am looking forward to working with you and the other entities and am hopeful that our collaboration and continued discussions will resolve and correct any issues that caused this unfortunate incident on March 15, 2016.

 According to NYC Analytics 911 Performance Reporting:

Anatomy of a 911 Call

All 911 calls are first answered by an NYPD Police Communications Technician (PCT). The PCT determines the nature of the emergency and routes it to the proper dispatcher (NYPD, FDNY or FDNY EMS) who determines the appropriate responders for the incident and dispatches them to the scene.

The reports on this page only cover calls that the City received through 911. Emergency incidents can come to first responder agencies from outside 911 including from fire alarm systems, street observations, and inter-agency requests for assistance (e.g. NYPD calls for an ambulance).

Due to the complex and varied nature of the calls to the City's 911 system, the process of responding to those emergencies involves seven different systems that work together to handle any type of incident that may occur. OCEC partnered with the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics to measure all the time segments involved in responding to an emergency to determine the average response time to all categories of call types. This information allows us to look at how much time each stage of the process takes and find ways the process can be improved to reduce overall response time and maintain a high level of performance during disasters.

Figure 1 is a high level schematic of the call taking and dispatching process.

Figure 2 is a detailed schematic of the call taking and dispatch segments and the agency responsible.

Hopefully, inputting the 96 Roosevelt Island addresses into the 911 system will solve this problem.

Stay tuned.