ROCHESTER, N.Y. — AMR, the ambulance company that covers the city of Rochester, broke ground on a new EMS operations center on Wednesday.
For years, News10NBC has been reporting on AMR’s response times, and the reality has been that if you’re not going to die, you’re going to wait but leaders at AMR say they are trying to change that.
The new location is at 10 Excel Drive, “this is such a more strategic location for the deployment of our ambulances, we’re on the north-center side of the city, this is one of the higher volume areas in the city,” says Tim Frost, the regional director for AMR.
The company’s 220 employees will all work out of the new location when construction is complete which should be by the end of 2027. The relocation is privately paid for by AMR with no taxpayer dollars to be involved in the move.
Frost said EMS staffing is improving, which means they should also be able to add ambulances to the rotation. “With more people, with more bodies, with more people actually providing skills in the back of ambulances, performance naturally improves,” he tells News10NBC.
The City of Rochester’s contract with AMR requires an ambulance get to a priority 1 (life or death) calls within nine minutes. For most lower priority calls, AMR has about 18 minutes to get to you. If those benchmarks aren’t met at least 70% of the time, the company can be fined $2,500 per month.
Jennifer Lewke (News10NBC): “Have you executed those penalties against AMR when they’re not meeting those metrics?”
Rochester Deputy Mayor Michael Burns: “Yea, so I would say that the contract is operating as it’s written and we’re really pleased with AMR’s performance. They’ve been a good partner; they’ve increased their staffing levels to be able to provide better service. All and all we’ve come a long way since the beginning of the contract to where we are now.”
Jennifer Lewke: “Would you happen to know how often you’ve penalized them for not meeting the contract?”
Deputy Mayor Burns: “That does happen each month.”
Lewke also asked Frost about those penalties.
Tim Frost (AMR): “We are still paying modest fines every month, they are generally related to the lower priority, lower acuity responses.”
In addition to the new operations center, AMR says it is also working alongside local leaders through its Community Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB brings together community leaders to help strengthen connections between EMS and the communities it serves, with a focus on emergency services education, workforce development, and lifesaving skills.
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