By Mike Murphy
As you may know, American Medical Response (AMR) recently purchased Rural/Metro, the city of San Diego’s 911 emergency medical responder. With the acquisition, AMR has now become the city’s official 911 responder.
We at AMR could not be more excited to be serving the people of San Diego and delivering the highest quality of emergency care to communities throughout the city, including those that comprise the Uptown area.
We’re certainly not new to San Diego. In fact, AMR has very deep roots here. We’ve been serving communities in the north, south and east county for more than 65 years.
AMR is now pleased to bring to the city of San Diego and its 1.3 million residents the resources of one of the nation’s most respected emergency medical responders, with more than 19,000 paramedics, EMTs, registered nurses and other professionals who transport more than 3 million patients every year.
Since taking ownership of Rural/Metro, we have been working closely with the San Diego Fire Department, moving quickly to improve service and address some of the response time issues that occurred under the previous provider.
We immediately brought in additional ambulances and paramedics, as well as a strike team of experts to design a citywide deployment plan aimed at reducing response times in both the urban core and outlying communities. To date, these efforts have been successful.
For AMR, though, serving the community means more than responding to life-threatening emergencies — it means preventing them as well. We will be working across the city to create a healthier and safer San Diego through community-based programs that range from improving one’s heart health, to helping people avoid household accidents, to training San Diegans in the life-saving skill of CPR.
Whether it’s responding to emergencies or preventing them, saving lives is what we’re all about — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
On behalf of the women and men of AMR here in San Diego, I want to wish you and your family a healthy and happy holiday season and a wonderful New Year.
—Murphy is the general manager of AMR in San Diego.
