Current emergency medical services, response times and level of care are inconsistent in the county, a study presented Tuesday to the Montgomery County Council shows.
The study, performed by Ritter Strategic Services of Hagerstown, was requested in January by the council to dissect a complex situation unfolding around the county’s ability to respond to medical emergencies, and to provide blueprints to meet national standards for best practices.
The county must have a system in place by the end of the year as city and private ambulance services have said they will no longer maintain operations as primary providers to rural areas. Said entities also have expressed willingness to work side by side with the county in whatever route it chooses.
The “unsustainable” agreements between Crawfordsville Fire and the majority of the county’s outlying townships to provide emergency ambulance transport are coming to an end Dec. 31. Mayor Todd Barton announced earlier this year the city would cease its operations outside Union Township unless it received financial support from the county and townships, saying provision of 911 services countywide is a “money-losing proposition” for the city.
“I have been sounding the alarm for several years that this day would come,” Barton said in January.
Furthermore, S.T.A.R. Ambulance owner Matt Peck said the private agency would cease operations as a primary provider later this year, though no date has yet been disclosed.
“We just want to be given fair treatment,” Peck said in January.
With this in mind, county officials contracted RSS to analyze three options: The city provides EMS services countywide; the county establishes its own EMS department; or the county contracts with one or more private EMS services.
“There’s a theme that we’ve developed in here — availability and response. That’s important when we begin to look at national standards and best practices for EMS response on the average with the assumptions of weather, traffic conditions and time of day,” Ritter said.
Currently, CFD response times to rural communities range from 11-23 minutes with a 4-minute differential depending on current conditions. All options call for the centralization of EMS headquarters in the county.
Additionally, all options would provide complete coverage to the county’s 37,936 residents, more than 16,000 of which reside within Crawfordsville’s borders.
Ritter said he and associate Brent Meadows have hosted forums with stakeholders, citizens, town boards and fire departments since January. Their goals are to meet six national standards, in that the next EMS system will be socially equitable, reliable and prepared, adoptable and innovative, sustainable and efficient, integrated and seamless, and inherently safe and effective.
Ritter and Meadows have facilitated focus groups, interviewed stakeholders and poured over large amounts of data provided by the county and private EMS providers.
“It was made very clear to us that the county expected to have a very transparent process. I’m happy to report that I think we were able to accomplish that,” Ritter said.
Though inconsistency has been found between departments in Montgomery County, Ritter said all have met or come close to meeting the national standard of 13-minute response times for rural areas at least 90% of the time.
“There are some parts of this county that are hard to get to,” Ritter said.
Separately, Ritter said emergency medical responders, or EMRs, will still be necessary regardless which option the county chooses. In fact, they will be need all the more, he said.
“EMS could not survive without EMRs. Crawfordsville Fire, S.T.A.R. Ambulance, or any other service that comes into this county ... will have to rely on fully-trained, fully-equipped EMRs. If we get to the point of specifications on the county, one of the expectations we would lean towards, is that whomever is providing EMS service in the county would be required to provide training ongoing to the EMRs and provide the basic equipment to them to provide care to a patient before the ambulance arrives.”
Considerations for all three options were presented Tuesday at the council meeting. Ritter listed the pros and cons of each, though the most involved discussion was that of a countywide EMS service provided by the county.
Council President Tom Mellish and the board’s six other members will review the data presented Tuesday ahead of a special board meeting on May 17.
