By Andrew Harp
The Evening News and the Tribune
CLARK COUNTY, Ind. — The ambulance service Clark County is currently contracting with is expanding into interfacility transports.
Heartland Ambulance Service will now do interfacility transports, which are non-911 ambulance transports like between hospitals, from a nursing home and other health facilities.
Josh Keywood, director of operations at Heartland, said one 24/7 advanced life support ambulance and one basic life support ambulance that runs 12 hours will be doing these transports but will back up the 911 calls if needed.
“Essentially, we’re providing two additional 911-capable ambulances to the county at no cost,” Keywood said.
Doug Bentfield, the administrator at the Clark County Health Department, said it will not cost the county more money for the ambulances that Heartland is providing for this.
“It’s helping relieve the strain,” Bentfield said.
Keywood said they’re working with Norton Clark Hospital and Baptist Health for these transports. He said these entities discussed issues with finding transports in a timely manner for patients.
Norton and Baptist do have their own ambulance transport vehicles, but even these may be inundated with work since they’re supporting entire networks.
“It just seemed like a good fit for us to start doing these transports to ... increase our footprint here,” Keywood said.
Bentfield said that if transports aren’t done in a timely manner, it trickles down since beds aren’t being turned, creating an increase in response times. He also said that the market is more than just Clark County, but also Louisville, which resources will sometimes go to.
He said that there are not very many ambulance companies operational in the county, and that more ambulances is always a benefit for the county residents.
“You can never have enough ambulances,” he said.
Keywood said there have been instances in which a hospital will call 911 in order to transport someone from one hospital to another, and instances where a nursing home called 911 to transport a resident to a doctor’s appointment since no one else could do it.
“It definitely was an issue, an underserved market when we came in and ... we hope we can help fix that problem,” Keywood said.
Currently, Heartland has a three-year contract with the county government for 911 services. Heartland came to the forefront after the county’s previous contractor, New Chapel EMS, lost staff members and was not able to fulfill its contract. Former Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel was the CEO of New Chapel, who is currently incarcerated after pleading guilty to multiple felonies.
Heartland provides seven, 24/7 ambulances with around 40 full-time employees which are a mixture of paramedics and EMTs.
Recently, Keywood said call volume has increased, with 15% more calls this past December, which is about 200 more calls. Calls increased during the winter storm last week but he said nearly all their vehicles have four-wheel drive, so responding to calls wasn’t an issue.
“We’ve fared pretty well,” Keywood said.
