HSLS holds a 1971 Assessment Report of the Freedom House Ambulance Service carried out by the Health and Welfare Association of Allegheny County. At this time, the organization had encountered several challenges as they put their experimental service into practice. The Health and Welfare Association gathered data from Freedom House employees, their patients, and other health care professionals. The goals of their report are detailed on pages 3 – 5 (images 9 - 11) and were to be used to help the organization respond to financial and organizational challenges. The following section (images 10 - 16) gives suggestions from the agency. A final summary and answers to the research questions are given on pages 74 – 79 (images 93 – 98).

Their report shows that the quality of care was very high and that Freedom House worked effectively as emergency services. The number of calls was growing each year.

While the need for trained EMTs was undisputed, the chart on page 26 (image 43) shows that only 1% of their calls were considered “life threatening emergencies” and 15% were “serious cases” not in immediate danger of death. The service averaged 18 calls per day or about six calls per shift, which covers about two hours of work. The staff was scheduled for eight-hour shifts.

In addition to gathering data about the operation of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, this report can give insight into the medical services and needs of the Pittsburgh area at this time. The FHAS had a contract with the City of Pittsburgh to answer calls in the Hill District and Oakland, where the population was mostly Black residents. These calls were categorized as “municipal” customers. The Ambulance Service also took “commercial” calls from other areas of the city that were mostly white residents. The study compared these two types of customers in several ways. The data on page 34 (image 51) shows that “life-threatening emergency” (LTE) calls were more frequent in the white, commercial customers even though Black patients made up more than half of the total calls.

The outcomes tracked in this study also showed different patterns between the commercial and municipal customers (page 38, image 55). The municipal calls were mostly for bleeding, seizures, breathing disturbances, coma, and heart attack. The life-threatening cases were taken to Presbyterian Hospital but 33% were dead on arrival. The routine calls were taken to Mercy Hospital, where they were detained but usually not admitted. The commercial calls were mostly infant transport (with an incubator), breathing disturbances, psychiatric cases, heart attack, and bleeding. The life-threatening  and serious cases were taken to Magee or Montefiore Hospital and 50% were admitted.