APOT Performance and Standards

About Ambulance Patient Offload Time (APOT)

APOT is measured from the time an ambulance arrives at the emergency department ambulance bay until the patient is transferred to an emergency department bed, gurney, chair or other accepted location and the hospital assumes responsibility for care. EMSA

Under California’s statewide APOT requirements, each Local EMS Agency must establish an APOT standard that does not exceed 30 minutes, 90% of the time. An offload time that exceeds the applicable local standard is considered an Ambulance Patient Offload Delay (APOD). Hospitals, ambulance providers and local EMS agencies use these measures to identify delays, improve transfer-of-care processes and preserve ambulance availability for emergency response. EMSA

San Mateo County EMS monitors APOT performance across receiving hospitals and uses these data as part of its broader system oversight and performance-improvement activities. The dashboard below provides current APOT performance information for the county’s EMS system.