Latest / MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French / Understanding Local EMS Services: Insights from Chief Kenny Barton
Transcript
- MyRye.com: Welcome to the MyRye.com podcast, Conversations with Doug French. I am your host, Doug French, former mayor of the City of Rye. And this podcast is all about the issues and the people that impact Rye and the surrounding region. Today in conversation, EMS Chief ⁓ Barton of the Rye-Rye Brook-Port Chester area. Chief, welcome to the MyRye.com. Chief Kenny Barton: Thank you for having me, Doug I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. MyRye.com: Absolutely. And the reason why we wanted to talk to you is because, you know, this time of year, there's people getting lot more active. So emergencies can happen. We're also seeing that seniors are living at home staying at home longer. So, ⁓ know, we want the audience to walk away with really three fundamental points. One is, what is our local EMS services? What are they all about? Are they sufficiently prepared? And what I do as an individual? to prepare for an emergency should it happen are there steps I need to be taking for myself to prepare for those situations. So ⁓ are some of the takeaways we'd like to see. Your will be on the MyRye.com site, but just to kick off, how many years have you been in the EMS business? Chief Kenny Barton: I started when I was 15 years old, I've been in EMS for, this is my 36th year in business. MyRye.com: Okay, very good, very good, very good. So just to paint a picture for folks, hypothetically speaking, and thank you hypothetically, let's say I wasn't feeling well and came over me, I knew there was an emergency situation, what's the first thing I should do? Chief Kenny Barton: You know, think one of the first things is, you know, just to sort of take stock of how you're actually feeling. And if this is a significant change from anything that you're acclimated to, you know, it really is appropriate to reach out and get us started toward that problem. I think a lot of people hesitate to call 911. I think there's an inherent fear that a lot of people have that if the ambulance shows up that they are going to be forced to go to the hospital. And that's not really the case. will certainly advocate ⁓ to take someone to the hospital if we feel it is absolutely imperative for them to go and seek more definitive ⁓ treatment evaluation from a physician. But we can always de-escalate that situation too. and sort of, you know, check off people's concerns and make sure that they are safe to remain at home if that's what they would prefer to do. So getting rid of that hesitation is a key, it seems to me to be a key element. You know, a delay in activating us, a delay in starting care can have significant consequences. you know, it's one of my talking points is to just, is to get that hesitation out of the way. We're happy to come. The crew is happy to go back in service. If there isn't work to be done, that is necessary. ⁓ we are right resource if there really is a medical problem that's happening. MyRye.com: So that's great. So let's get behind the 911 call and get into some of the meat, potato, so to speak, logistically how this works. So let's talk about the fleet and manpower. So how many folks do you have? How many ambulances? Where are they stationed? Those types of things. Chief Kenny Barton: Yeah, so currently we have a staff of about 45 total between EMTs and paramedics. have a fleet of seven ambulances currently and two paramedic fly cars. All our vehicles are equipped at the level of advanced life support. So the paramedic care ⁓ responds out this building with every call for service that we receive. MyRye.com: where they stationed. Chief Kenny Barton: Everything currently is stationed at our headquarters, which is in Port Chester on Ellendale Avenue. That's ⁓ our main of operations. MyRye.com: one of the trends we're seeing is this paid versus volunteer. What's the nature? What's the makeup of the staff? Chief Kenny Barton: So our last volunteer left the building in about 2011. ⁓ MyRye.com: ⁓ wow, okay. Chief Kenny Barton: Our service call volume is just, it's such that it doesn't, we could not support the volume of calls here with ⁓ staffing. ⁓ have to make sure that we can get the ambulances out the door, out the door quickly when emergencies happen. From a call volume perspective, ⁓ last year, we are one of the busiest agencies in the county. did over 6,400 calls for service ⁓ in 2025. MyRye.com: Well, I was mayor from 2010 to 2014, hence 2011 was my last. So there you go. That's the nature of this is to get everybody up to speed. So 6400 Calls, how does that break down by the various communities? Chief Kenny Barton: You know, it's reasonably split by the population, I would say. Port Chester certainly has the lion's share of the calls with the biggest proportion of our population, followed by Rye and then by Rye Brook. There's a large senior population in all three of our communities, so that demographic certainly helps the call volume get to where it is. MyRye.com: And how many square miles are we talking about? Are we talking about the major highways in and around the area? How does that impact your coverage? Chief Kenny Barton: Yeah, we have a sort of a unique area. Geographically, we don't have a really big footprint. know, Portchester being only two square miles. Rye and Rye Brook, you know, actual land portion of our coverage area is not significantly greater in either of those two communities. But it's a very dynamic You know, ⁓ as far as the county concerned, you know, we have an amusement park. We're the primary coverage entity for the Westchester County Airport. We have ⁓ ⁓ we have a section of the Hutchinson River Parkway. So there's a lot of variation in the of calls that our staff daily and then throughout year. MyRye.com: Is it a typical day? Chief Kenny Barton: There's never a typical day. I think that's one of the things that appeals to ⁓ people that do this work is that, you know, you sort of every day you hit the reset button when you come in and MyRye.com: Right. Right. Chief Kenny Barton: You never know what you're gonna expect. average day with call volume that we ⁓ mentioned we're doing roughly 16 to 20 calls ⁓ a day for service within the A quiet day could be certainly down in the single digits, but a busy day and our busiest days, we'll get over 35 calls. ⁓ So ⁓ there's a lot of that happens on those particular days. MyRye.com: Gotcha. And how is technology changing the EMS world in terms of dispatch, mapping, finding locations, translations, metrics, AI. Can you speak to those, how technology is changing? Chief Kenny Barton: Yeah, you know, think our ability to interact with our hospital facilities, our receiving facilities, is probably one of the biggest things that our technology has allowed us to do. we're able to record patient data in the field with our monitoring devices and then we can transmit that data directly to a physician a receiving hospital, follow that up with a phone call to have a conversation about what's happening with that person or any suspicions. And it helps to, especially with certain critical ⁓ problems like attacks and strokes, which are very time sensitive, that we are giving the hospital advanced notice of ⁓ of that problem coming in and they make significant preparations advance of the arrival of that particular patient. MyRye.com: And how do you choose Greenwich or White Plains? You service both, correct? Chief Kenny Barton: We do. Currently, ⁓ majority of our patients do prefer Hospital, and it is generally patient discretion is how make the decision on where to transport a patient unless there are specialty care needs that are identified. Trauma, stroke, heart attack, ⁓ are certain ⁓ facilities more capabilities others. So we will discretionarily certainly patients on where go. with certain problem sets. MyRye.com: So what about the nature of the phone call? The 911, does it go to the Rye PD How does that route correctly? Chief Kenny Barton: It's a great question and it's something that I think is really important for residents to understand how that situation works. When 911 first became a thing, everybody was using a landline telephone. ⁓ Landline telephone is... ⁓ That's the best way to go. It's the most reliable phone call. It goes directly to the closest public safety answering point, which, based on our structure of our system, is our local police department. I think the thing that people need to be aware of and have a better comprehension of is what happens now ⁓ when we pick up the cell phone. The Rye community is one of the interesting locations for the cell phone call because of the proximity to the Long Island Sound and sort of open water. There are often times where that ⁓ initial phone call ⁓ from Rye resident could go across and end up being received in Long Island. And the first interaction that person is gonna have is with a state police dispatcher ⁓ Island who then needs to understand the of that phone call is not in Long Island. It is coming from Westchester County, then prompts a transfer of that phone call to state police in Westchester, who then screen it to determine ⁓ police, fire, EMS needs some combination of those resources. And when it's determined that EMS is is what is being requested for that particular service, the call then gets forwarded again to the local dispatch center in Westchester County, which is called 60 Control in Valhalla. can lead to a multi-minute delay in getting our resources mobilized. Just ⁓ the is speaking to a dispatcher ⁓ does put our wheels in motion. So the best solution locally is to call the police department directly. Again, from a landline telephone, that would be by calling 911. But from a cell phone, certainly at least have the wherewithal to quickly navigate with the person that receives that call to get a quick understanding of where the problem is so that resources get mobilized quicker. MyRye.com: So in Rye, for example, it's 967-1234. Right, and so we'll make sure we get the numbers of all the areas posted here. so, yeah, cell phone coverage, that's a topic I covered last episode with the mayor. So we'll get into that another time with another guest. But that's a great, great insight there. What about AI and the use of AI? Is that able to help ⁓ in providing your services? Chief Kenny Barton: Correct. technology is certainly up and coming. ⁓ haven't seen a lot of it introduced into our actual patient care applications at this point. Certainly the charting and documentation side, ⁓ AI is becoming a tool that we utilize. But as as our clinical performance in the ambulance, AI still hasn't really, hasn't found us yet. MyRye.com: I know the police chief was saying how they're able to, with their body camera, get a report generated of the incident, ⁓ have it translated, help in translation, so things of that nature. Is there technology you have today that you didn't have maybe five years ago that's really helped the quality of service and the speed and efficiency? Chief Kenny Barton: Yeah, the biggest change is probably with really with all of our patient moving equipment, our stretcher, a device called the stair chair, is what we use to take people up and down a staircase that are unable to walk. Those devices ⁓ have powered equipment over the past decade or so. It saves the providers on the lifting with their backs. It saves us on the liability side ⁓ with certainly riskier maneuvers manually moved equipment, causes a lot strain on the provider and ⁓ has more risk associated with it. So those technologies have been very helpful there. MyRye.com: I know when I was mayor, one of the models that we would always put forward was the local EMS. And that's how really coordination between Rye, Rye Brook, Port Chester really came together in terms of funding coordination, the level of service. it just, I hear nothing but great things. So let's go, let's put some personal stories behind ⁓ So if you, I know the teams won a bunch of awards this past ⁓ Can you paint a picture for the audience around? emergency situation, the nature of situation and the personnel about the person and what they did. Chief Kenny Barton: I think our greatest accomplishment in the past year in 2025 was with our cardiac arrests. Out of hospital survival ⁓ for events is a very small percentage ⁓ most the time. And last year we actually had five out of hospital ⁓ ⁓ people were able to resume function following complete ⁓ and cardiac arrest event, you know, those are very calls. There's extremely time sensitive as far ⁓ preserving brain and heart ⁓ ⁓ And somebody, once stop and the heart stops beating and... way our system structured with our dual response with the police departments, get resources to those problems very quickly. And enables us to increase survivability for our residents, that's, ⁓ can't of a better objective for what we do ⁓ than making ⁓ that people able to go back to daily living ⁓ after having an like that. MyRye.com: That's terrific. That's terrific. And so before we go on, I just want to remind the audience, if you have a topic or a guest that you would like to hear on the MyRye.com podcast, Conversations with Doug French, just email me at French at MyRye.com or just let me know on the street and we will make sure we get that worked in. So we're going to pivot a little bit. And just maybe if you give me a one word answer or a one word rating, so I'll throw a topic out there. And so, for example, this podcast, you could say, excellent or you could say informative, right? So I'll throw out some topics and you can ⁓ just give me your reaction. I can do a follow-up. How ⁓ what would you say about the coordination of the three local government ⁓ in Rye, Rye Brook and Port Chester? All right, you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Why is it fantastic? Okay. Chief Kenny Barton: I can elaborate on that one a lot. We have a very unique system. The shared service model that we've had in place for now almost 30 years is really becoming a model for EMS agencies throughout the state. Since the COVID pandemic in 2021, there was a massive attrition of providers, paramedics and EMTs in the pre-hospital world. People were scared. People took a lot of risk and exposed themselves to a pretty scary situation. knowing a lot about what the possibilities were. And a lot of people did step up to the plate, but we certainly lost a large number of providers who just said that this field wasn't going to be for them after having that experience. And so the state has started try to focus on how to improve ⁓ EMS delivery throughout the It's very fractured and very segmented depending on exactly where you live, including within Westchester County. But our shared service model been extremely successful. We are a 501c3 not-for-profit that is contracted by the three municipalities for service, we have a very close working relationship. We have direct oversight via an EMS committee, which is of each of the municipal managers from the three communities, ⁓ as well one citizen at large from each of the three communities. we meet quarterly, we report on our response statistics, on our financials regularly. So it's a very open book relationship that has everyone well ⁓ this process. And there some legislation that came out in January of this year that the governor signed that is now mandating counties to look at their EMS systems in part and in total to identify that need improvement. And I can that our service model ⁓ and specifically our is being modeled throughout the county and across the state ⁓ we're performing. ⁓ MyRye.com: That's great to hear. That's great to hear. Most municipalities want to just have everything for themselves and just do everything for themselves. So it's great that the communities, especially in this populated area, work so well together. Okay, continuing with our little one word answer, funding levels. Chief Kenny Barton: Funding levels are good. MyRye.com: And what's the nature of your, if you take your annual budget, how do you break that down? Percentages of staff versus equipment and so forth. Chief Kenny Barton: Yeah, so our budget, 2026 calendar budget is roughly five, just under five and a half million dollars. We... We're sort of unique in the emergency services realm that we're able to bill for our service. So we do bill insurance companies when we take someone to the hospital. We bill Medicare, we bill Medicaid. We will send a bill to someone that does not have insurance. But there's a decision, a long standing decision that was made by the EMS committee that we will not take anyone to collection. So we're not looking to cause hardship, but we will certainly take insurance companies monies that help support our operation, which actually is about 65 % of our operating budget comes from our billing services. Additionally, we have about 25 % that comes from our combined municipal contribution ⁓ another 10 % that comes from donation and grant money. MyRye.com: So the combined contribution from the municipalities, what does that run about these days? I'm not gonna guess, I could guess, but go ahead. ⁓ Chief Kenny Barton: ⁓ I'm going it's roughly ⁓ a million and a half ⁓ our monies that come from the three municipalities. MyRye.com: Yeah. is great because when I was mayor 15 years ago, it was about 600,000 per municipality. So it's 1.8. So you guys have really held the line on that contribution. Excellent. ⁓ if you at Port Chester, development is really rapidly expanding. ⁓ has that your services at all? Chief Kenny Barton: It hasn't really yet. ⁓ There's a lot of growth that is charted. It's certainly well underway, the occupancy isn't there yet. So until we actually get the population increase ⁓ we are expecting, has had a, really has not had an effect on our call volume yet. MyRye.com: There's also development in Rye though too, right? Chief Kenny Barton: There is. There's in all three of our communities. ⁓ senior and living facilities, new ones coming to all three municipalities over the next ⁓ three to years, which is also sort of directly correlate with growth as far as our call volume and our delivery of care. MyRye.com: And so are you planning for that now in terms of looking at potential staffing levels or are waiting until things are further along? Chief Kenny Barton: We're certainly anticipating it. We know that it's coming. conversations are already on the table about what our growth is going to need to be to match what we expect the call volume to grow to over next couple years as people move in. MyRye.com: How about of staffing levels? What's one word rating or word about your staffing levels, recruitment training, overall? ⁓ Chief Kenny Barton: It's solid right now. MyRye.com: Good. And how would you improve that? More training? Better pool to draw from? ⁓ Chief Kenny Barton: So have two distinct pools of ⁓ As advanced ⁓ life agency, we have paramedics ⁓ that advanced care. We have EMTs that provide basic care, depending on the needs of any given call ⁓ or determinations made on which level of care is necessary to take that person to the hospital and treat them. Our advanced life support providers, the paramedics, ⁓ their course of instruction is over a thousand hours of time. it's a significant ⁓ investment of ⁓ education time and to get people up to that level of care. ⁓ An ⁓ typically roughly in the 160 to 180 hours of training time, at least initially. And then continuing education that occurs regularly. ⁓ once you have achieved your initial certification. MyRye.com: Did you correlate the paramedics a direct result of the earlier stat you mentioned about the ability to get people back in their regular workday and ⁓ lifestyle? Chief Kenny Barton: The advanced level care makes a big difference in those circumstances. Basic life support is essential ⁓ somebody has a cardiac arrest event. That has to be done perfectly. the paramedics capabilities with medications, IV access, ⁓ airway control, things make a significant difference as far as our outcomes. ⁓ MyRye.com: Okay. All right, and then what about, so you mentioned the coordination with the hospitals is great. What about one word to describe the ⁓ of the facilities, the fleet and the equipment? Chief Kenny Barton: Facilities is probably our biggest issue. That's problematic. MyRye.com: More space, quality of the building. Chief Kenny Barton: We've outgrown our current space. We have a three bay garage for seven ambulances. many of our service vehicles are parked outside exposed to the weather. We're ⁓ now struggling dorm accommodation for our staff. We're here hours a day. And ⁓ our biggest is our training space. We do run a training center out of the facility. Did over 2000 individual trainings in 2025, and we're doing it out of a very limited amount of square footage. MyRye.com: Would you ever envision having locations in each of the municipalities or would it always be centralized? Chief Kenny Barton: We do have locations currently. ⁓ don't staff them ⁓ simply of the call volume strain that we have. But we have the ability, ⁓ especially as with this past when we had our major snow events, we are able to ambulances into all three So the Rye Brook Firehouse and the Milton Road in Rye ⁓ both get utilized as posts ⁓ when we need to. MyRye.com: So let's move to our last block in closing. We're going to pivot back to the individual residents. is there anything you'd like to leave the audience with in terms of their own personal safety and awareness to prepare for emergency situations, it's training or ⁓ or ⁓ you could say, any words of advice? Chief Kenny Barton: I'm a huge advocate for CPR. I've been a CPR instructor for probably 15 years at this point. And having bystanders start CPR before police or EMS arrives there absolutely increases the survivability for that person. 10 % per minute of someone's survivability is lost when nothing is being done for them once they collapse. So we have a huge push. within our communities to increase the education of all of our residents, try to get ⁓ as many people trained, at least at the hands-only CPR level and AED level as possible. So we're hundreds and hundreds of those per year for the past several years. MyRye.com: Is that in person or is that like a YouTube thing? Chief Kenny Barton: There's different models. We're an American Heart Association Training Center. So there are hybrid models ⁓ I do believe they actually just released a new. a new model that could be done completely online. I'm still an advocate for the old school hands-on training. I think nothing can replace ⁓ with some quality instruction a good opportunity to really understand significance of the skill that you're gonna need to perform. ⁓ The version is probably the best way to go. MyRye.com: And is that listed on your site if people want to get trained? Okay, okay. And your site again is? Chief Kenny Barton: It is, yes. www.pcrrbems.com MyRye.com: Easy, right? Port Chester, Rye, Rye, Brook. ⁓ ems.com, okay. What about a pitch for those that want to get in the field? Chief Kenny Barton: EMS.com. There's a couple options getting involved. ⁓ Again, unfortunately, the volunteer opportunity doesn't really exist with us any longer. But if somebody was looking to foray into the business, Westchester Community College is a great resource for training. Even school seniors are able to take the program at the college with school's ⁓ Adult residents have the to take the college class. are ⁓ also of the ambulance services in the county, Scarsdale and Irvington also offer EMT as does Phelps Hospital in Sleepy Hollow. MyRye.com: I am what and you mentioned I think 10 % of your funding is from donations. How do people donate if they were interested in donating? Chief Kenny Barton: Yeah, so there is a link on the website. There is a donation page there that will take you there. It does read a little bit as if you're paying a bill, but it will go to the right place and will get certainly be acknowledged as a donation. any method credit card check where of those things are acceptable there. We also do do an annual fund drive that usually is around the holiday time ⁓ in A letter comes from me from this just looking to lobby for Our funding is certainly our day-to-day operations are well funded by our three communities, but our ability to deal with things like our building problem are difficult. They're a challenge for a not-for-profit. MyRye.com: Well, I have to say, Chief Kenny, it's been a real pleasure. Your enthusiasm is just infectious. And it's but I can see your leadership and your expertise and your passion for the service. It should be commended. So I know the community thanks you. I hear nothing but excellent things. So ⁓ thank for joining us on the podcast. And I want to thank all of our listeners in the audience today listening to the podcast. with Doug French. You can find more local news and full episode transcripts on the MyRye.com website. If found this conversation helpful, please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And once again, Chief, thank very much ⁓ and we'll you, hopefully not see you, in the near future. Chief Kenny Barton: Thank you again for having me Doug, I appreciate the opportunity.