By Gerald Witt
Knoxville News-Sentinel
KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — Knox County officials are questioning the performance of ambulance contractor Rural/Metro after two moments this year when the company had no ambulances free for emergency response.
Knox County Purchasing Director Hugh Holt, in a July 1 letter, asked for an explanation and action plan related to issues including requests for mutual aid from outside agencies, challenges the ambulance service had filling shifts and longer-than-10-minute response times.
“When someone calls 911 for a medical emergency, they deserve to know they’ll receive an appropriate response, which is why Knox County is doing its due diligence. It’s our duty to ensure public safety,” said Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett said in a news release Thursday.
Dr. Martha Buchanan, director of the Knox County Health Department, said there were other ambulance companies available to respond during the two times in April when Rural/Metro had none free. The incidents initiated talks between the two groups on a performance checkup, according to Buchanan.
“The next step is Rural/Metro will send a letter indicating what their plan is,” Buchanan said, “we’ll sit down and go through it and we’ll also have a shared understanding on how we’re going to monitor that.”
There is no intent to terminate the Rural/Metro contract, officials said. Both sides have said they’re cooperating with each other.
Reports that Rural/Metro had been failing its contractual duties are false, according to a statement provided by the company Thursday.
“It is critical to express to all concerned parties that Rural/Metro stands in 100 percent compliance with its ambulance services contract with Knox County Government,” Erin Downey, regional manager of Rural/Metro, wrote in an emailed statement.
“In review of the letter, Rural/Metro immediately found erroneous statements that we are in the process of reviewing with (Buchanan),” Downey’s statement read.
Downey said the use of mutual aid was less than one percent from January to March 2015, though Holt’s letter asked about the use of mutual aid 78 percent of the time over that period.
“To be clear,” the county release read, “this bullet point refers to the number of days during which Rural/Metro notified partner agencies of the potential need for mutual aid, and is not intended to mean that 78 percent of all individual emergency medical calls received a mutual aid response.”
An official with Grainger County Ambulance Services said he had noticed a slight increase in mutual aid provided to Rural/Metro in recent months, but another such official with Anderson County EMS noticed no increase in mutual aid calls.
Downey’s statement said Rural/Metro has consistently met response times under the contract.
County records show Rural/Metro had five response times over 10 minutes in March, three in April, and two in May. Rural/Metro is fined when response times stretch past 10 minutes. Buchanan said health department staff had been aware of the concerns, and that staff there meet with Rural/Metro monthly.
“To go over the exceptions to that 10-minute response time, we already meet with them regularly,” Buchanan said, “but there are probably going to be a few more meetings.”
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©2015 the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.)