Baptist Floyd proposes to partner with Floyd County for EMS service

May 23—FLOYD COUNTY — Baptist Health Floyd has presented a proposal to the Floyd County Commissioners to provide Floyd County with county-wide EMS services.

The hospital is proposing to manage a county-owned ambulance service and collaborate with the commissioners and EMS Advisory Board.

The county has partnered with New Chapel EMS since 2017 for ambulance services. There are two-and-a-half ambulances operating in the county now, meaning two run for 24 hours and one runs for 12 hours.

The Baptist Health Floyd proposal estimated a $923,794 annual cost for the hospital for the contract, which includes four ambulances. Two of the ambulances would run 24 hours a day, seven days a week and two ambulances would run 12 hours a day, one six days a week and the other seven days.

Ambulance response times have continually been a topic of concern for both residents in the region and the county's EMS Advisory Board.

Commissioner Tim Kamer said that the advisory board has told the commissioners several times that New Chapel EMS response times were too slow, though Kamer said they were still meeting contractual obligations.

While the overall averages given to the EMS Advisory Board lie within the contractual obligation, commissioner John Schellenberger, who is also on the board, said the times are still too slow.

From July to December of last year, Schellenberger said the board calculated their own average response time but did not look at calls that were canceled, runs that were stuck in traffic or by a train. They only looked at emergency calls that faced the same conditions.

"We tried to look at the true data as far as for a typical emergency run," he said.

By only looking at these emergency calls, Schellenberger said the board calculated that the average response time is much higher.

Baptist Health Floyd also proposed having the four ambulances strategically located throughout the county to get to the more rural areas of the county quicker.

The hospital included $20,000 into the estimated cost for rent. Schellenberger said that if they get agreements with firehouses in the county the ambulances could be stationed there to be closer to residents in rural areas.

Though important, board member and former EMS director in Harrison County Gary Kleeman said that there is a lot more to ambulance service than just response times.

"You got to talk about level of patient care, level of staff training, quality assurance system. It's severely lacking according to the Fitch study," Kleeman said.

Fitch and Associates conducted a study of EMS services in Floyd County, not including ambulance services in New Albany, that was published in January of 2020. The study results gave recommendations to improve county EMS services by meeting different benchmarks.

From his 44 years of experience in the field, Kleeman said that he finds hospital-based ambulance services to be better "because of the robust quality assurance and requirements that hospitals have to meet on a daily basis."

"EMS is what hospitals do. Hospitals have a huge quality assurance system and standards that they have to meet," he said.

One of the benchmarks not currently met by the county is the establishment of response time criteria. Baptist Health Floyd pledged to set criteria between eight minutes and 59 seconds and 12 minutes and 59 seconds.

Schellenberger said the contract with Baptist Health Floyd integrated the recommendations of the report. Some of the recommendations include using automatic vehicle location (AVL), having a medical director for all EMS services and having a more comprehensive approach to quality improvement and assurance.

AVL tracks and records ambulances' location as well as their speed. This allows for dispatchers to send out the ambulance that is closest to the patient.

Kleeman said that AVL is not being used by New Chapel EMS in the county.

The over $900,000 cost would be more than the current contract, which Kleeman said is around $280,000. But he said he has found in his career that EMS services are poorly funded by county governments.

A benefit that Kleeman and Schellenberger pointed out would come from the Baptist Health Floyd contract is that the two parties would have consistent meetings to discuss costs.

While Kleeman said New Chapel EMS is not willing to share financial information with the county, the hospital would sit down with them and show them a cost breakdown.

If there are differences in the estimated costs the county and hospital will share it half and half. So if the price ends up exceeding the estimate, the county and hospital will split the cost; if the price is lower than the estimate, the county and hospital will split the savings.

While Kamer thought the Baptist Health Floyd presentation went well, he said he still would like to have some questions answered and would like for New Chapel to have an opportunity to chime in before making a decision.

At this stage, Kamer said he is mainly focused on making sure that Floyd County residents receive the best value for the dollar invested, be it voting in favor of a new contract or renewing the one with New Chapel EMS.

Kamer said he does not see the value in having a county-run EMS service because he does not believe the government should have its hand in everything. The county has had a reliable partner in New Chapel EMS for many years, he said.