Nursing homes abuse ambulance services for non-emergency transport

Firefighters at Station 7 in Columbia rushed to thesame nursing home three times during two recent 24-hour shifts. Onlyone of those 911 calls – for a patient in “respiratory distress” – wasa true emergency, crew members said, but firefighters still took allthree residents to a hospital by ambulance.  “Sometimes we’re more of a transportation service [for thesefacilities] than an emergency service,” paramedic firefighter JeffreyKing said.  As the population ages, fire departments across the region are facedwith a growing demand for ambulance services from long-term carefacilities.Unnecessary 911 calls from such facilities not only waste money butalso divert resources away from true emergencies, said Dr. Robert R.Bass, director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical ServicesSystems.  “For volunteer [ambulance crews], it’s going to take a lot more oftheir time. Charles County is still heavily volunteer, and they’ve beenstruggling down there because of the growing number of assisted-livingfacilities,” he said.  His agency, which oversees the statewide emergency medical and traumanetwork, plans to launch a pilot program this year to try to cut downon non-emergency 911 calls from nursing homes.

Source/more:  Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/howard/bal-te.ho.emergency01sep01,0,4060056.story