The key recommendations The Abaris Group (the contractor evaluating Riverside County\u2019s emergency medical system) will submit in the early spring to the Board of Supervisors, were discussed in public meetings last week.<\/p>\n
A summary of the 11 recommendations can be found below.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are our observations and recommendations we\u2019ve made after looking at the [Riverside County] system,\u201d said Bill Bullard of Abaris. \u201cOur direction was to develop a world-class emergency medical system, not just what is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nine of the recommendations addressed managing and improving the overall county adminstration of the emergency medical system. These range from a program to discover and implement future innovations to the county\u2019s staffing for its oversight.<\/p>\n
The final two recommendations addressed the ambulance delivery system, which prompted the evaluation. Bullard said Abaris will offer the supervisors three options.<\/p>\n
One will simply be continuing the current system, and negotiating a new contract with American Medical Response, the current countywide ambulance provider. \u201cWhat we see today is what we\u2019ll see tomorrow,\u201d is how Bullard described this option.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other two options open up the possibility of more competition, but also open [the whole system] to more state review,\u201d Bullard advised.<\/p>\n
In both options two and three, Idyllwild Fire Protection District retains its exclusive ambulance rights in Idyllwild. However, County Service Area 38 (Pine Cove) and Zone 3 to the north and south, which it serves outside of the IFPD, would become part of the new competitive areas. Besides Idyllwild, the cove areas in the desert also maintain grandfathered rights and would be excluded from these options, too.<\/p>\n
The second option would separate the county into several zones and a competitive contract would be awarded for each zone. \u201cEach contract would have local parameters to be consistent with that area,\u201d he said. \u201cThe challenge for this option is that the Mountain Zone [Pine Cove, Garner Valley and Anza] alone will probably offer very little interest for potential bidders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third option recommends establishing a single operation for the entire county and requesting proposals for that service.<\/p>\n
Bullard said the supervisors will have to decide which method will yield the best system for the county. The trade-off is between a more competitive contract and increased state oversight, which will be invited over the 10-year process until a new contract is completed.<\/p>\n
Regardless of which option the board chooses, the county is aware of the unique situation the Mountain Zone poses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be service \u2014 good ambulance service on the Mountain,\u201d Bruce Barton, director of Riverside County\u2019s Emergency Service Agency, affirmed. \u201cSupervisor [Jeff] Stone [3rd District] is watching this very closely. [The service] will not be less than the level now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, the time ambulance crews must spend waiting to be released from local hospitals after transporting a patient is the biggest negative in the entire system, according to Barton. He hopes to establish a working group composed of emergency responders and hospital managers to address this problem.<\/p>\n
Also, he critiqued the current process: \u201cTreating every single call as if it were a cardiac incident and sending every one \u2018code 3\u2019 is massively expensive and archaic,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n
J.P. Crumrine can be reached at jp@towncrier.com.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Recommendations to improve county EMS<\/strong><\/p>\n Recommendations for improving the Riverside County emergency medical system, proposed by The Abaris Group:<\/p>\n 1. Commence an EMS innovation project to better position the community for changes occurring both in the community and in health care with Health care reform (The Affordable Care Act).<\/p>\n 2. Continue reinstituting a state-of-the-art continuous quality-improvement and medical-control program (such as enhanced medical direction) consistent with the report\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n 3. Collaborate and document opportunities to create an EMS system where the most appropriate and available EMS resource responds to an emergency request regardless of geographical jurisdiction.<\/p>\n 4. Explore and develop improved efficiencies for EMS services provided to mental-health patients.<\/p>\n 5. Address the \u201cEMS-to-ED\u201d [emergency department] off-load ambulance delays in the form of a multidisciplinary collaborative.<\/p>\n 6. Adopt stronger inter-facility transport requirements and monitoring processes.<\/p>\n 7. Adopt key communication recommendations for the report.<\/p>\n 8. Change the EMS governance structure.<\/p>\n 9. Evaluate and develop strategies to improve online medical direction.<\/p>\n 10. Consider one of three models of ambulance exclusivity as documented in the report and, as appropriate, begin a request for the proposal process to establish appropriate providers throughout the county.<\/p>\n 11. Address existing contract parameters with all of the county\u2019s 9-1-1 ambulance providers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The key recommendations The Abaris Group (the contractor evaluating Riverside County\u2019s emergency medical system) will submit in the early spring to the Board of Supervisors, were discussed in public meetings last week. A summary of the 11 recommendations can be found below. \u201cThese are our observations and recommendations we\u2019ve made after looking at the [Riverside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n