California law requires ambulances to offload patients at hospitals within 30 minutes, but the average offload time statewide is about 43 minutes, according to The San Francisco Standard.
A recent study analyzed nearly 6 million offloads across 34 California emergency medical services agencies to identify patterns in ambulance offload times. Sixteen of the agencies exceeded the state's 30-minute standard between 2021 and mid-2023, but average times varied widely.
In the North Coast region, the average ambulance patient offload time was 6.2 minutes. In Sacramento, the average average offload time was 66.8 minutes. Overall, the mean offload time in California was 42.8 minutes, according to findings published Dec. 16 in JAMA.
In San Francisco, the average patient waits nearly 40 minutes in an ambulance, with some waiting more than an hour, the Standard reported Jan. 2.
One factor to this issue is severe staffing shortages in the healthcare industry, according to the report. Another potential contributor is emergency department boarding, which has remained a significant care coordination issue since the COVID-19 pandemic.
These delays are also slowing ambulance arrival times for emergencies. The city aims for a 20-minute response time for non-life-threatening 911 calls and a 10-minute response for life-threatening emergencies. San Francisco has not met the first goal since July 2023 or the second goal in the past four years, according to the Standard.