Berkshire County — The Friends of the Bushnell-Sage Library will host a panel discussion on the many challenges facing Emergency Medical Services will be held on Friday, February 21, at 1 p.m. at Dewey Hall in Sheffield. The panel discussion will include State Rep. Leigh Davis (D – 3rd Berkshire District), Sheffield Police Chief Eric Munson, Action Ambulance Service CEO Michael Woronka, Southern Berkshire Ambulance Squad Board Director James Santos, and Ryan Brown, who is the Lee Regional Task Force representative to Southern Berkshire Emergency Medical Services.
State Rep. Davis currently has five bills concerning Emergency Medical Services in the current legislative session:
- An Act to declare emergency medical services an essential service;
- An Act to establish an emergency medical services treatment-in-place (TIP) pilot program;
- An Act establishing an emergency medical services licensure compact;
- An Act to require CPR training and promote careers in emergency medical services; and
- An Act establishing a special commission on emergency medical services.
As noted in the event’s press release, panel members are part of the Southern Berkshire EMS regionalization study funded through a $180,500 grant from the state’s Efficiency and Regionalization Program.
The goal of the study is to evaluate critical challenges facing medical providers across the 3rd Berkshire District.
In an interview with The Berkshire Edge, Woronka said that one of the biggest of the many challenges facing EMS organizations in Berkshire County is attracting and retaining staff. “We need additional support from various government payers and other groups to increase reimbursement rates so we can effectively pay our staff,” Woronka said. “We need to be able to make this more of a permanent career for our employees, instead of something transient for them.”
Woronka said that EMS is still a relatively new industry that mostly emerged in the 1970s. “When EMS was first formed, the government was a big component in funding,” Woronka said. “But then EMS started getting more into the private and commercial world. Over the years, technology and the healthcare system have all advanced; however, we don’t know where EMS fits within the current healthcare system. We’ve been left behind as the healthcare system has evolved. Now we’re all battling to find out what our identity is. Are we part of a healthcare system? Are we a transportation entity? Are we a public support system? When people are in trouble, they call 911, so now we are a support system to the public. However, our ability to do that is starting to dwindle because we’re not given all the tools to do our jobs.”
“The question becomes: What is our job?” Brown said. “Are we a transportation agency? Are we a medical treatment agency? Are we both? On the 911 side, we are both, but we are being regulated as one or the other, not together. The problem is that regulation and oversight is quite cumbersome, and I think it needs to be streamlined somehow.”
Action Ambulance Service is a privately funded EMS out of Wilmington, Mass.
“The public and private [EMS] split needs to be acknowledged because we can’t do our jobs without each other,” Brown said. “We all strive to offer the gold standard of the best available to our customers, and whether we’re a municipal agency or a private agency, it’s customer service with a smile. That’s what it has to be.”
Woronka said that another problem EMS providers face statewide is an increase in emergency calls. “As the population is getting older, the systems are getting busier,” Woronka said. “Berkshire County is the perfect microcosm of this. When hospitals can’t move patients between different campuses because there aren’t enough EMS resources to move patients, the system starts to back up. There are also wait times in the emergency rooms where patients wait up to 90 minutes in a hall waiting for a bed. Those backups create slowdowns in terms of availability of EMS units in all the systems.”
Another persistent and constant issue, as well documented in previous articles published on The Berkshire Edge and other outlets, is funding for EMS services. “In my community, I’m proud to say that they all support us the best way they can,” Brown said. “We typically aren’t in a situation where we have to go without, and we are very fortunate. However, this is an expensive industry. Payroll for employees per EMS starts at about $620,000 on the low end and is at $785,000 on the high end. That payroll doesn’t include medical equipment or gasoline for the ambulances. The further away you are from the hospital, the more gasoline you have to buy.”
