By Samantha Liss
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — Abbott EMS is planning to add up to 75 jobs this year as its St. Louis office grows to cover five more states.
From the third floor of their St. Louis-based operations, Abbott dispatchers direct paramedics and ambulances to emergency and non-emergency calls in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
Abbott employs 450 people in the St. Louis area, and has its medical personnel on standby at Cardinals and Blues games and other events.
By the end of the year, the St. Louis command center will more than double its reach as the company expands into Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Abbott’s office, southeast of the intersection of McCausland and Manchester avenues, recently went through a $750,000 upgrade to become a state-of-the-art dispatching hub. The company is eliminating smaller dispatch centers and consolidating into the St. Louis location.
Mark Corley, regional director for American Medical Response, Abbott’s parent company, said the consolidation saved money.
“It lowers our per transportation cost,” Corley said.
The St. Louis hub will the first of its kind for AMR, a subsidiary of Colorado-based Envision Healthcare Corp.
AMR operates in 40 states and the District of Columbia. It transports about 4.4 million patients a year.
Corley said the organization was hiring. Dispatch salaries start between $25,000 and $27,000, plus benefits. Experienced dispatchers can make up to $40,000 a year, he said.
Abbott was founded in 1969 as Abbott Ambulance Inc. It was bought by Emergency Medical Services Corp., now known as Envision, in 2007.
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