The Brown 20

I once worked with a prehospital practitioner who at one time worked for a service that drilled 20 minute scene times in their head. If they didn't make a 20 minute or less scene time, the service would question the crew as to why it 'took them so long.' I was never a fan of this. I would frequently be internally irritated when someone would remind me of how long we have been on scene.

"15 minutes" 

"20 minutes - we gotta go!"

For certain types of calls, time does matter. I used to tell one of my partners that there are four reasons we speed up scene time and transport lights and sirens. I call them the the 4 S's. 

1. Surgical need (trauma, abdominal emergency, etc)

2. STEMI

3. Stroke 

4. Sam (me) has to use the bathroom (most common reason)

In these cases, I fully support a quick and smooth approach to optimize scene times to a certain goal number (although I understand when we do not meet that goal for various reasons).