Agenda - 06-17-1987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ORANGE COUNTY HILLSBOROUGH NORTH CAROLINA 27278 EMERGENCY SERVICES IUI; EAST MARGARET LANE Established 1752 TO: Mr. Kenneth Thompson - Orange County Manager FROM: Bobby L. Baker ' DATE: December 11, 1986 RE: Non-Emergency Transports The Emergency Medical Services in Orange County began with the establishment of two (2) totally volunteer organizations - Orange County Rescue Squad in 1968 and South Orange Rescue Squad in 1971. By 1980 it had become evident (due to call volume, because of a desire to provide the same Advanced Life Support county-wide and because of the-refusal of the sponsor hospital to continue dealing with two (2) organizations_ in the same county) that a more county oriented organization was necessary.emergency medical services �� In order to assure a continued County Emergency Medical Services was..formedr Orange aCountyuEmergencygMedical Services provides emergency patient care Monday through Friday, 6 AM to 6 PM and South Orange Rescue Squad and Orange County Rescue Squad volunteers provide this same service nights and week-ends.: .These three (3) services operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week providing for emergency calls only. In order to maintain the availability to respond.to `emergency calls without delay, it has not been ��'�> possible for these agencies. to provide non-emergency transports. In May, 1983, the Orange County Board of Commissioners granted franchises to Southeastern Medevac, Triangle Ambulance and Piedmont Ambulance Services to provide non-emergency transports in„Orange,. County. These were privately owned ambulances who:.were'allowed to: charge.a fee-for-service. At present all three (3) of these services are no longer in business. The last of these (Piedmont) discontinued service November 30, 1986, without prior notification. : Although Orange County Emergency Medical Services has experienced a substantial increase in emergency calls and is in the process of making the necessary adjustments for handling this increase, we have been able to handle some non- emergency transports utilizing emergency crews. However, utilizing emergency • crews for non-emergency transports increases the possibility of delay in response to emergency calls. The following options could be considered to allow for continuation of non- emergency transports for the citizens of Orange County: 1) Seek an outside provider to franchise to provide this service. 2) Orange County provide ambulance service for non-emergency patients and charge fee-for-service to offset at least a portion of cost. 3) Orange County provide ambulance service for non-emergency fee-for-service by use of part-time employees. g y patients without •