County seeks public input on ambulance services

In an effort to seek public input on the ambulance service, County Commissioner Connie Cruser organized a public meeting last week involving local dignitaries and parties closely related to the situation, including Karl and Carrie Vogt from Northwest Paramedics, the current county ambulance service provider.

The current contract NPA has with the ambulance service will end in September. The county commissioners then will prepare an Request for Proposal (RFP) for a new contract. The meeting was to discuss the goals for the county ambulance service that the city of Mountain Home would like to have in the RFP.

Cruser discussed the commissioners' current ongoing joint study of the ambulance service, which included a recent tour of ambulance services in Prairie, Grand View, and the Pine-Featherville area among others.

Fire chief Phil Gridley began the brainstorming session by saying he would like the ambulance to be more involved with the community.

Following Gridley were several other expectations voiced by the audience, which included a well-trained staff, level of service and contract oversight involving qualified personnel.

An item that was discussed thoroughly was having medics who know the areas of the county.

The brainstorming session also considered scene preservation, disaster service participation, response time and quarters and garaging of the ambulances.

Chris Alzola said she wanted equipment in good working order, but then she corrected herself by saying, "Not good working order, excellent working order."

The brainstorming continued with a discussion on costs and wages for the medics. "These guys need to be capable of making a good living," said Bud Corbus.

More items addressed included a medical control center, which would provide advice on outside protocol, in-house training, quality customer service and a backup ambulance service staff (with a minimum of 2 crews).

Those attending the meeting also suggested a periodic performance review based on written clinical standards, and that each first responder to an incident be given critical incident stress management.

Following the brainstorming session, Health Care Planning and Management Consultant Bill Elder asked each member of the audience to highlight the items discussed as to what they thought were the most critical.

The result of that informal survey showed those attending the meeting saw the most critical items as being a well-trained staff, quality of customer service, well-equipped vehicles, the cost of the ambulance and internal management.

An improved ambulance garage and quarters, and the ambulance service being more involved with the community, received very few votes.

Cruser said the next step the county will take is to review different models of the ambulance service, including ones that are fire based, hospital based, volunteer based, county based and privately owned (private for profit and private non-profit).

Once the joint study is concluded on March 14, the county will prepare a request for a new ambulance proposal.

Karl Vogt said that he was "more than happy to be a resource on any level." Vogt spoke about the issues involving the ambulance service, and told the commissioners "this is the best process for the county -- to research on what needs to be done out here."

"I just hope that this meeting tonight was a good first step," Cruser said following the meeting.