Officials of San Diego have said that they plan to switch the city’s ambulance service provider for the first time in more than two decades. The Fire-Rescue Chief Colin Stowell said that the city has decided to engage in an exclusive contract negotiation with Falck, a Danish-owned company that provides ambulance services in over nine U.S. states including California. The officials of the city chose Falck over the city’s existing ambulance provider based on the response of the two companies to a 73-page “request for proposals”. The decision to switch came forth after a series of disputes between the AMR and city officials over response times, staffing levels and fines levied on the company for not being able to meet the city goals.
The relations between the city and AMR stabilized since the company’s amendment was softened to boost the company’s revenue with high patient fees. The contract was extended several times but AMR ended up buying the company they were going to be replaced with and continued their services under the same contract. Stowell has stated that the city residents should be optimistic about the possible switch to Falck as Falck has a strong track record in emergency services and has creative & innovative ideas in its proposal to the city.
Falck also serves parts of Los Angeles and Orange Counties with its subordinate Care Ambulance Services and also has separate contracts in Oregon, Washington, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Colorado, Maryland and Michigan. While the details of Falck’s proposal are going to be kept confidential until a contract is reached, Stowell said that the proposal addressed concerns that the city has had about wasted trips when ambulances respond to non-emergencies. Falck’s proposal will also include new equipment and possibly some new facilities. However, if no agreement is reached, the city would switch back to AMR or issue a new request for proposals.
Stowell has refused to state whether Falck has proposed an increase in payment from the patients for an ambulance although he did say that patient fees were one of the four main criteria that the city officials used to evaluate the proposals from Falck and AMR. The other criteria involved staffing, company track record and responsiveness to the city’s request for proposals. Chris Heiser, a deputy fire chief in charge of emergency medical services said that a rough 6-month transition from AMR to Falck makes sense.
Heiser stated that they would be required to give them a reasonable amount of time to purchase equipment, move staff over and set up their infrastructure to start providing services. Heiser and a team of city officials have planned to visit Alameda County soon to analyze that the transition from Paramedics Plus to Falck has begun. Falck has faced some fines for not meeting response times but the company officials have blamed them on depleted staff.
According to a report published by Value Market Research, the rise in the geriatric population has resulted in an increased incidence of chronic diseases. Also, the entrance of new ambulance service providers, expanding the medical tourism industry, and the increasing number of road accidents are expected to fuel the ambulance services market growth. Growing cases of cardiovascular disorder that require immediate medical attention and emergency medical services and an increase in technologically advanced equipment along with the rising awareness of the life support system are also expected to augment the ambulance services market growth over the forecast period.
However, San Deigo has no plans to change its response time standards which require the arrivals at acute emergencies within 12 minutes of receiving a 9-1-1 call as per Stowell. He also said there are no plans to return to having eight response zones which the city was using until AMR complaints prompted a shift to four response zones. The goal of having eight zones was greater equity among communities. Four zones instead of eight means the existence of larger zones which in turn have increased the potential for the company to provide subpar services to some communities and still meet the response time goals. Stowell has stated that he is not concerned about the city choosing Falck would lead to lesser efforts from AMR.
Naira Shekhawat has been into Content Writing just after completing her Graduation in English Literature. Her love for words has won her many accolades in her respective jobs ever since. Naira covers business sections for VMR News. She is a traveller by heart and loves writing on food blogs as a freelancer.