A multi-agency effort for faster response<\/p>\n
Manhattan: Your reporting on the city\u2019s worsening emergency response times<\/a> highlights a problem that can\u2019t be solved by focusing on ambulance travel time alone. As a former executive director of NYC EMS, I believe response time is the product of an entire system \u2014 from 911-call processing and dispatch through staffed ambulance capacity, deployment, workforce recruitment and retention, traffic, and patient transfer at receiving hospitals.<\/p>\n FDNY operates EMS, but several important factors affecting its performance are controlled or influenced by other city agencies, hospitals and labor-management decisions. The City Council\u2019s Oct. 20 oversight hearing on ambulance response times provides an opportunity to examine how those pieces of the system work together, and where capacity is being lost. The city should bring together FDNY, Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Labor Relations, EMS labor, Health + Hospitals and the broader hospital community, use their existing data to determine where capacity and delays are occurring, establish meaningful clinical and operational performance standards, and determine what resources and changes to all the factors listed above are required to achieve them reliably. An EMS Improvement and Modernization Task Force could provide the mechanism for doing that work and for turning its findings into measurable improvements.<\/p>\n New York does not lack data or expertise. It needs a coordinated mechanism for turning them into action.<\/p>\n James T. Kerr<\/p>\n Major omission<\/p>\n Staten Island: I guess the Daily News aren\u2019t hockey fans, because on Thursday, Rangers goalie Igor Sheriken was only 18th in all of NHL history to score a goal, but when I looked in the paper the next day, what do I find? Nothing. Every sport except hockey. And not just a Rangers win, but a feat that happened only 17 times before.<\/p>\n Mark Tarasiewicz<\/p>\n Get the facts<\/p>\n Chester, N.J.: The failure to prosecute the sex assault at Cornell University<\/a> shows a basic failure of the law defining consent, and the district attorney and police working the case. While the initial sexual activity may have been consensual, those who participated after supplying ketamine to a drunk victim were clearly guilty. Add to this that the availability of sex was advertised on the fraternity\u2019s social media, and it\u2019s a clear case of multiple sexual assaults by perpetrators the victim didn\u2019t recognize. More facts may come out that are either incriminating or exculpatory, but investigation is warranted.<\/p>\n David J. Melvin<\/p>\n Intractable issues<\/p>\n Manhattan: Kudos to the City Council for demonstrating undeniable political acumen by becoming the nation\u2019s first legislature to haul the AI architects in for formal scrutiny (\u201cThe City Council must hear everyone on AI<\/a>,\u201d op-ed, Oct. 4). However, now the Council finds itself tethered to a remarkably intractable dilemma. A similar inertia plagues its approach to local canine waste. Consequently, the ubiquity of sidewalk detritus has become, in my mind, permanently inextricable from the Council\u2019s legacy. These are the distinct dangers of trying to conquer the defining issues of our time. In aggressively claiming stewardship over both existential tech threats and dog poop, the Council has ensured that every future failure \u2014 algorithmic or canine \u2014 now belongs entirely to them.<\/p>\n John Smith<\/p>\n Choose ethically<\/p>\n