More changes in store for Cole County EMS
After a year of reorganization, Cole County EMS has made several changes and has more in store for later this month.
Starting Jan. 31, the department plans to move to an internationally standard approach to handling emergencies, starting with answering 911 calls.
Dispatchers will be able to give callers step-by-step instructions on how to handle their emergencies before crews arrive.
Over the last few weeks, the department has been training 14 dispatchers ahead of the new protocols and software, according to interim director John Smith with Paramedics Plus.
“If, for example, you have chest pains, there’s questions they’re going to ask and how you answer it is how we’re going to treat that call,” Smith said. “Our dispatchers will be giving CPR instructions, delivering babies, helping choking victims, all on the phone well before a fire truck or ambulance arrives.”
Last year, county commissioners decided Cole County EMS needed to do something different to improve its service.
“We knew we had some issues here and we are not expert enough to know what to do, so we sought outside help and everybody recommended Paramedics Plus out of Texas,” Presiding Cole County Commissioner Sam Bushman said.
Aside from hiring new director Jerry Johnson in late November, Paramedics Plus has helped the county implement multiple changes, starting with initial response.
“There’s over 1,700 different ways we can classify an emergency,” Smith said. “We have looked at how we would respond to all of those.”
Cole County EMS has since added about six employees, added more operational ambulance hours, put supervisors on staff 24-hours a day and moved one ambulance to the north side of town.
“We put an ambulance in the jail downtown,” Bushman said. “So when you get calls over to the high rise or something, just having an ambulance to the north of Highway 50 makes it much quicker to respond to things on that end of town.”
The county’s EMS budget has only increased about $168,500 even with all the changes and additions it has made over the past year.
Smith’s last day transitioning in the new director will be this Friday.
