DeKalb County Ambulance Contract

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b7spectra

EMS Dispatcher
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Looks like Rural/Metro has been hired to provide backup service to DeKalb County. Via the AJC.com:

DeKalb County News 9:16 p.m. Thursday, July 1, 2010

The county has hired Rural Metro Ambulance to provide temporary ambulance service starting Tuesday, CEO Burrell Ellis announced Thursday night. The length of the contract was not provided, only that Rural Metro will work until a request for proposals can be submitted.

Last month, CEO’s spokeswoman Shelia Edwards said the county had hired American Medical Response to provide temporary service.

It’s unclear why DeKalb has changed vendors. Edwards did not respond to questions Thursday night.

Last month, DeKalb abruptly terminated its contract with Care Ambulance, saying crews failed to follow policy and had delayed response times. Care has said they are only aware of one complaint: an injured teenage soccer player who waited 22 minutes for an ambulance.

At Care’s request, the county commission is considering an audit after multiple complaints of delayed responses by county 911 employees.

An outside company is also checking all addresses in DeKalb’s 911 system. On Monday, county public safety director William “Wiz” Miller told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that 53 addresses had been omitted in April when the county upgraded its Computer-Aided Dispatch system. All of those addresses have since been restored, Miller said.

Rural Metro also provides service to several Fulton County cities, including Alpharetta, Roswell, East Point and College Park.
 
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I was told by two seperate firefighter paramedics with DeKalb that Rural Metro was going to assume primary 911 service for the county, and the larger ambulances DeKalb has in service were to become squads with primary response to structure fires and other large events.

I know R/M is replacing CARE, but these guys say they are taking over ALS duty as well - recent hiring of only paramedics for ALS response also would indicate they aren't just doing "basic" backup response.

Anyone else have any more info or can confirm/disprove of what I've heard?
 

b7spectra

EMS Dispatcher
Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
3,143
Location
Cobb County, GA
I met one of the Paramedic Supervisors today, he said that Tuesday morning at 0001 they are putting 10 R/M units in service. Seems like DKEMS is going to be relegated as a first responder and the TOT R/M.
 
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