- April 24, 2024
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As the Volusia County EMS system increases staffing and ambulances, the county also hopes to increase its service to beachside residents by stationing a fully-staffed ambulance in its North Peninsula Fire Station no. 14 in Ormond-by-the-Sea for 12 hours a day starting this fall.
Adding an ambulance to the north peninsula was part of the five recommendations presented to the County Council at its meeting on Feb. 5. The council voted to implement the first two recommendations for a cost of $1.45 million (including start-up and recurring costs) by Oct. 1: Revise its interfacility transfer model by dedicating two of its ambulances around the clock for this purpose, an immediate action, and implement a nurse triage pilot program to handle low acuity calls. This one is meant to free up ambulances for "true emergencies" and will be phased in before Oct. 1.
The ambulance at the Fire Station no. 14 is part of the county's fourth recommendation, to be implemented on Oct. 1. The north peninsula was identified as a location where the county's dynamic deployment system didn't work, said Joseph Pozzo, interim county director of public protection.
“If you get a call in the north peninsula, then you potentially can have an extended response time," Pozzo said.
EMS received 499 calls for service in the north peninsula from Oct. 1, 2017-Sept. 30, 2018. The average response time for an ambulance to reach the scene was 13 minutes and 24 seconds; for the fire department, which is deployed from Fire Station no. 14, it was five minutes and 27 seconds.
All of the recommendations were in result of the Volusia Managers Association EMS Ad-Hoc Committee formed last summer to review the EMS system challenges.
Jason Lademann, EMS Union president, was part of that committee. He said in an email that the committee identified areas in the county that are difficult to reach in a timely fashion from the central areas ambulances are typically positioned.
"The plan’s initial recommendation to add ambulances in Ormond-by-the-Sea and Osteen will improve response times to both communities and their surrounding areas," Lademann said.
That ambulance will make a difference, said Volusia County Councilwoman Heather Post.
When she first came into office, she said people who lived along the A1A corridor approached her, concerned about the EMS service due to the elderly nature of the north peninsula's population.
“If you just look at the logistics, it’s physically impossible to get someone up there in a hurry when you have no one beachside, period," she said.
Without a hospital on the beachside, residents already face at least a 20 minute commute to AdventHealth Daytona Beach. That demonstrates an increased critical care need, Post said.
“It has been needed up in the north peninsula for a long time, and I’m very excited to be getting one up there," she said.
When the committee began meeting, Pozzo said they looked at response times. They found that, while the average response time was seven minutes and 30 seconds, 90% of the time EMS was responding at 11 minutes and 48 seconds or less countywide. And when the committee saw that, Pozzo said they looked into what was causing the lag.
“What we discovered was that the demand, at certain times of the day, exceeds the available EMS resources," Pozzo said.
This is where the county's PLUS program comes in to assist EMS, Pozzo said. New Smyrna Beach, Ponce Inlet, Edgewater, Deltona, South Daytona and Port Orange have all bought their own ambulances and entered the program.
“We immediately addressed the demand problem," Pozzo said. "As soon as we recognized we have a demand problem, we have some staffing issues, we have some interfacility issues, we went to work right away.”
Pozzo said the county is working to fill all vacancies in EMS, as well as keeping a continuing pool of candidates to fill positions later on.
The new leadership in EMS has put "a strong focus" on filling positions, said Lademann. This has allowed EMS to better meet demand by staffing additional ambulances using overtime, he added.
"Our paramedics and EMTs have stepped up to the plate again and again to work even more shifts each month until permanent staffing improvements are approved," Lademann said.
Opening additional EMS service centers, the third recommendation presented to the council, will also pre-position ambulances in strategic locations, Lademann said. This will reduce fuel costs and wear and tear on the ambulances, he explained, as well as create "a healthier and safer work environment, for nearly all EMS crews are currently confined to the cab of the ambulance for each 12-hour shift."
EMS has undergone management changes since the committee began meeting. In December 2018, EMS Director John Zaragoza agreed to resign after a meeting with Pozzo, and Emergency Operations Director Jim Judge was moved to act as the EMS interim director.
Pozzo said that Judge has had a "very positive effect" on the organization itself and the collective bargaining unit. He's taken a "real interest" in the ambulances, their quality and conditions, as well as the paramedics and EMTs.
Judge said that everyone has been working together to find what's best for the system, a partnership that has come under Pozzo's leadership.
“Before director Pozzo was here, that didn’t exist," Judge said.
While Post said she would have liked to see the recommendations presented as a "full package" to be implemented at once, she said she understood Pozzo needed time to get this done. However, she said she was disappointed in how the presentations where presented. Some recommendations have been budgeted for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
“All of this needs to happen to get us to square one," she said. "It wasn’t presented in that way.”
If the county implemented all the recommendations, it would have cost Volusia almost $4.4 million in one-time and recurring costs.
Still, she said this is a step in the right direction.
Lademann said the biggest change EMS has seen since the committee began meeting last October is a change in atmosphere.
"While the needs of EMS have long since received a proverbial shoulder shrug, new leadership gave EMS the time and attention that was long overdue," Lademann said.
