CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Chicago Fire Department still is not doing what it should to gauge whether fire and medical response times meet state and national standards, according to a recent city inspector report.
City Inspector General Joe Ferguson found in 2013 and then in a follow-up report two years later that the Chicago Fire Department was not keeping track of elements that would determine whether CFD was meeting national standards. The Inspector General indicates in his latest report that the same problem still exists.
The report suggests the department establish and document department wide turnout including travel and total response times for both fire and EMS at the 90th percentile.
"If CFD management believe NFPA recommended turnout and travel times are unachievable in Chicago, they should conduct a systematic evaluation of local factors affecting response times and set reasonable goals for turnout, travel, and total response times accordingly," states the second audit of the OIG report.
"CFD should also identify, monitor, and remedy the cause of gaps in its data, and should consider hiring an internal data specialist to improve data quality."
In response, the fire department agreed with the report's findings and acknowledges the importance of being able to measure performance.
"We will work with OEMC (Office of Emergency Management) to improve methods of tracking and reporting response times as part of our continued efforts to respond rapidly and safely to all calls," Fire Department Spokesman Larry Langford wrote in an email to the Chicago Sun-Times.
CFD responds to more than 300,00 calls per year. 80 percent of them are for medical emergencies while 20 percent are for fires.
