By Hannah Drown
cleveland.com
ELYRIA, Ohio — Elyria City Council’s EMS committee unanimously voted Thursday to recommend the city continue contracting with LifeCare for ambulance and emergency medical services, concluding it remains the best financial option while maintaining quality care.
The recommendation follows months of discussion over whether the city should bring ambulance services in-house.
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Councilman Jack Cerra, part of the committee, said continuing to contract with a private vendor is “in the best interest of the city financially and from a quality of service standpoint at this time.”
Committee Chairman Councilman Brad Armstrong said the decision allows the city to move forward, but added officials should continue examining how often firefighters respond to medical calls alongside LifeCare.
“I think we as a city and as a community need to start considering how much load the fire department should be taking on,” Armstrong said, citing the wear and tear caused by unnecessary responses.
Safety-Service Director Chris Pyanowski said the city has already begun reviewing its EMS response system to determine whether some calls can be handled by LifeCare without dispatching firefighters.
The city is working with Lorain County 911 to improve how emergency calls are categorized and dispatched, Pyanowski said. He said broad descriptions, such as “traumatic injury,” often don’t provide enough information to determine whether the fire department needs to respond.
To better evaluate calls, the city changed its data collection process about two months ago and plans to analyze the first 90 days of information before considering changes.
“My impression is that we’re too broad on the calls that we’re responding to,” Pyanowski said. “We’ll be able to rein some of those in.”
Any changes would be reviewed with Fire Chief Joseph Vargo, Lorain County 911 officials and the University Hospitals medical director who oversees the city’s EMS system to ensure residents continue receiving appropriate emergency care, Pyanowski said.
Pyanowski said the city also has redrawn fire response districts to improve response times and efficiency. The changes account for operations at the Broad Street fire station and require coordination with Lorain County 911 before taking effect.
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