In 2016, the Jefferson City Fire Department responded to 5,060 calls for service - 3,149 of which were medical calls.
Since the department began running medical calls in the city in 1996, response times have continued to improve, JCFD Chief Matt Schofield said at Tuesday's Cole County Commission meeting.
The department announced in 2014 it would make efforts to minimize responding to calls where there isn't a specific role for the fire department.
"We've not been responding to incidents where there are trained medical personnel on site, and the situation calls for transferring patients to another medical facility," Schofield said. "We had gone in the past, but there were cases the fire department really had no role to play. And those calls took our people out of service. We've told these facilities that if something out of the ordinary happens where you think we are needed, then we'll be there.
"We don't want to stray too far from the life safety and property conservation mission we have, especially with constrained budgets," Schofield added.
Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman also credited the response time improvement to the county housing an ambulance at the county jail, allowing for faster responses to calls within the city.
The commission signed its annual agreement with the fire department to aid and augment the ambulance service in responding to medical emergencies. The county pays Jefferson City $25,000 for providing first responder medical response within the city. The money comes from the county's ambulance sales tax funds.