AHN introduces new paramedic response unit to northern Butler County
WASHINGTON TWP — Residents in northern Butler County can rest a little easier should they face an emergency situation thanks to a partnership between Allegheny Health Network and nearby independent emergency medical services agencies.
AHN Prehospital Care Services welcomed more than a dozen local EMS agency representatives and county officials to the North Washington Rodeo grounds for an open house to celebrate the launch of a new paramedic response unit on Tuesday, Sept. 24.
The unit’s main purpose is to provide supplemental care to patients, while lessening the detrimental impact of increasing emergency service response times in the county, especially in more rural areas.
“I think that this is a step in the right direction,” said county Commissioner Kevin Boozel. “This is a community response to a known crisis. We can do all these studies, but they all attribute it to the same issues, which are obviously funding, staffing and resources. We have to do better with resources.”
EMS services across the state have been forced to navigate the challenges that come with a dwindling number of staff members.
Paramedic Response Unit 956 was devised over a two-year period to alleviate some of the pressure on local EMS agencies, such as those in North Washington where an ambulance can take up to 30 minutes or longer to arrive on scene.
“Our purpose is to provide paramedics additional medications and additional training to be able to reduce that first medical contact time so that we can at least start to care for the patient while the ambulance is still en route,” AHN prehospital business development specialist Nico Soler said. “Also if the ambulance is understaffed or a patient requires more aggressive care, we can also function as an extra set of hands.”
AHN also will staff the new unit 24/7 with three new full-time employees and anywhere between five to seven part-time positions. According to Soler, AHN paramedics are cross-trained and have the ability to fill in on any unit.
“We’ve committed to this as a 24/7 unit,” he said. “Our prehospital business development team studied the area. We took a close look at the metrics and numbers and determined it would be feasible to have that (the unit) here. On top of that, we have life flight helicopters at Clarion and Butler that can easily work with them and take care of those super sick patients.”
The northern municipalities in the area were accepting of the added support. The North Washington Volunteer Fire Department will house the truck for a heavily discounted cost.
“You can’t just force a service down somebody’s throat,” said Boozel. “The community has to be accepting of it. Nobody wants to say we’re struggling, and we want to say we have it. When you get to the point where you can’t say that anymore safely, then I think it’s time to reach out for help. I think that the local communities in northern Butler County have done so, and in a very professional way.”
Several local EMS studies assisted in reforming the EMS Council. That kind of cooperation between municipalities and organizations like AHN that can provide much-needed financial backing is critical to properly allocating funds in the future.
“That’s an open new resource for Butler County,” Boozel said. “As far as what it (the unit) costs to run, the cost of a life can never measure what it costs to run, but we still have to fund it.”
