#1 CamTin: 7 days ago

It is more honest to keep the comparison either between absolute numbers or percentages:

7% of emergency calls made by 0.16% of people

4,288 of 62,763 emergency calls made by 100 people

#2 chias: 7 days ago

"[In 2015,] 7% of the 62,763 emergency calls [in Milwaukee] came from the same 100 people"

#3 rdtsc: 7 days ago

A coworker was volunteering with the local rescue squad. They knew the frequent callers personally. One was a particularly sad story of lonely old woman who would call because she just wanted a ride to the hospital and it seemed to be her only source of human interaction. They could never say "we are not coming, it's so and so" because well that one time she could have really needed help. Some insurance companies have incentives against this by charging a steep price for the ambulance ride and only waving if person is admitted. But at a deeper level this is a failure of social services and increased isolation and loneliness experienced by the elderly. We usually hear about how it happens in Japan, but it's happening here in US as well.

#4 ericsilver: 7 days ago

Their success metric may just be reversion to the mean; since they started by selecting the people who had made the most calls, you would expect the number of calls to come from those specific people to fall in the coming years. Since there was also likely some underlying health condition, you would expect the between-year variance to be large. It might well be that their program has no effect whatsoever.

#5 narrator: 7 days ago

The system by which people have to spend 8 years in school to become doctors and the limited amount of spots in medical schools is one of the main impediments to lower health care costs since doctor salaries are astronomical compared to other countries. This program is a good first step for making health care more affordable in that it is empowering paramedics.

#6 analog31: 7 days ago

A friend of mine, who's a former EMT, once told me: "When you're an EMT, you get to know all of the diabetics in your area."

#7 s17n: 7 days ago

It's almost like having people be responsible for their own healthcare doesn't actually work in the real world.

#8 orf: 7 days ago

Why is the fire department launching paramedic initiatives?

#9 aantix: 7 days ago

This sort of distribution plays out everywhere. The rich. Three point shooting. Now, 911 calls.