By Adrian Blanco
In 2009, when Mayor de Blasio named Michael Flowers director of analytics of New York City, the city started a new program driven by data to detect any kind of inefficiency and tackle it. The Emergency Medical System response time was among the inefficiencies. Using data, they found and reduced the city’s emergency response times. Although the average response time is stabilized for serious emergencies at around nine minutes, there are still a dozen areas where having a serious emergency could be really problematic.
In total, the number of emergency cases has risen in the last few years from 417,470 in 2010 to 555,824 in 2017. Although the time response remains stable for life threatening emergencies, the consequences that a higher number of cases can produce are especially worrying for less accessible areas. Among serious emergencies are cardiac conditions, difficulty in breathing, unconsciousness or major burn cases.
An analysis of the data unveils the less accessible ZIP code areas to have an emergency in New York City. According to it, Midtown Manhattan, north Bronx and south Queens are the worst places to require urgent medical assistance.
Getting rapid medical attention is absolutely critical when suffering a heart attack. The consequences of a heart attack are largely determined by how much of the heart muscle dies, which is why the shorter period of time to get to the incident location matters. Rockaway Point and Breezy Point, in Queens, and Pulitzer Fountain, in the southeast corner of Central Park, are the most life threatening areas to suffer a heart attack. Both ZIP code areas are above the average waiting time of the city.