Southwest Ambulance

[Utah_Viper]

Apparently Southwest Ambulance will start a contract with Salt Lake City the spring. Does anyone have information on what system they will dispatch on? will it be the SLC trunk system or thier own frequencies?

 

[LGLHOOK]

They will be on the SLC system. They will house 1 ambulance in each fire station in Salt Lake City and then have a couple of rover trucks. Gold Cross was asked to set a truck in each station due to extended response times and denied this request, so Salt Lake City Fire found a vendor who was willing to facilitate this need.

 

[fodbuster]

This could get interesting. They will probably have their own TG's also, rather than just use SLCFD's TG's. Whether or not they are on UCAN still remains to be seen.

 

[Utah_Viper]

I think they will have to have access to UCAN because the hospitals are now all on that system. I agree they will most likely be dispatched on SLCSFD but will have there own system as well, weather on the SLC trunked or UCAN or something else is still to be seen.

 

[lavy]

Southwest Dispatch

According to admin, Southwest will be dispatched by and on the same equipment as SLCFD. They will be housed in their own stations that use the same zetron equipment as SlCFD. They will use the same TGID's and be part of a new seamless transport system for salt lake city. No longer will the ambulance crew get lost switching between two dispatch centers.

 

[boonez]

Anymore news on Southwest Ambulance coming to SLC or TG ids.

 

[Junior1970]

Latest I know of according to the Tribune in an article is that Southwest is starting up operations on April 1st. I would expect a couple of new talkgroups popping up around then.

 

[lavy]

same as before

As mentioned before, Southwest will as of this time be dispatched by SLC fire and use the same Talkgroups the Fire department. Which means you can monitor them on the slc site which just became a simulcast site this week with a control channel of 860.2625 or monitor them on the rebroadcast with the same tgid's on the ucan salt lake simulcast. As for Southwest, they like City Fire will also have access to the ucan system as all hospitals in the ucan coverage area use the system. Will they have their own tgid's for use, maybe, will it be anything to listen to? probably not right away. it may be a talkaround channel for now. remember, one of the big points of this change was better and more seamless communication with the ambulance crew. expect to hear them responding and working off SLC tgid's.

 

[qlajlu]

It sounds like Southwest will operate as if they were SLCFD units. All they would have to do is be on the FD's TGs to have traffic just like the fire equipment. As far as communicating with the hospitals, SLCFD does that now by simply crossing over to UCAN and talking to the hospital on the hospital's TG. When you hear traffic on a hospital TG, you do not know who is talking to the hospital unless you hear the mobile unit identify itself. Sounds pretty straight forward to me and nothing to be seriously worried about.

The only reason Gold Cross has its own TGs is so its dispatcher can select the unit to respond and instruct them as to the address and which fire crew they will be assisting. They also have a fair amount of private transportation that does not always involve fire personel.

My question is, will Southwest be restricted to incorporated Salt Lake City only? This could be interesting.

 

[LGLHOOK]

It sounds like Southwest will operate as if they were SLCFD units. All they would have to do is be on the FD's TGs to have traffic just like the fire equipment. As far as communicating with the hospitals, SLCFD does that now by simply crossing over to UCAN and talking to the hospital on the hospital's TG. When you hear traffic on a hospital TG, you do not know who is talking to the hospital unless you hear the mobile unit identify itself. Sounds pretty straight forward to me and nothing to be seriously worried about.

The only reason Gold Cross has its own TGs is so its dispatcher can select the unit to respond and instruct them as to the address and which fire crew they will be assisting. They also have a fair amount of private transportation that does not always involve fire personel.

My question is, will Southwest be restricted to incorporated Salt Lake City only? This could be interesting.

Brent, you are correct. Southwest Ambulance will respond as SLC Fire units. To start, they will have 2 rigs stationed to cover the area of 3 SLC Fire stations around the city. Ambulances will be stationed out of a Fire House kind of like a current paramedic unit with a couple of rover rigs, For example, 2 rigs will cover the area for say Fire stations 14, 6 and 8. They will have the same exact radio setup as Gold Cross. They will have access to UCAN Hospital and VECC Fire response channels incase of an incident requiring them respond with another agency. For example, an auto accident on SR-201 @ 3200 West usually brings West Valley Fire as well as City Fire 14. So far, the plans are only to have Southwest service Salt Lake City at this time. However, like any other service, they might look to expand to Salt Lake County in the future.
A major factor of the change was Gold Cross was approched by SLC Fire to house a rig at stations across the City for response time issues. They declined the offer and the city put it out for bid to cut delayed response times.

 

[boonez]

Does anyone know if Southwest has started running yet with SLC?

 

[Utah_Viper]

I believe they begin service in april.

 

[LGLHOOK]

Does anyone know if Southwest has started running yet with SLC?

Payroll officialy started in Utah on Monday March 13, 2006. The target date to take over opperations is set for Monady April 3, 2006.

 

[boonez]

Are they responding at this time with SLC Fire or is it still Gold Cross?

 

[LGLHOOK]

Still Gold Cross at this time.

 

[LGLHOOK]

Court OK's new SLC ambulance provider

Sunday March 19, 2006

Gold Cross may appeal:
Southwest begins service in April with fleet of 14 vehicles.

By Jason Bergreen
The Salt Lake Tribune

A judge gave Southwest Ambulance the green light to begin
providing emergency transportation service for Salt Lake City next
month.
A temporary injunction granted to former provider Gold Cross was
dismissed Friday by 3rd District Judge Glenn K. Iwasaki, who ruled
that the city did not violate state law when it replaced Gold Cross
with Arizonia-based Southwest
"This is what we expected all along," said Southwest spokesman
Josh Weiss.
More than 50 Southwest employees began their training Monday even
before the ruling was made. The company will introduce a new fleet
of 14 ambulances, seven of which will be in service at any given
time, Weiss said.
The injunction had threatened to delay Southwest's proposed start
date, but Friday's ruling means it can begin responding to emergency
calls in the city on April 3 as scheduled.
"We are very excited to start serving the community," Weiss said.
Gold Cross had argued that Mayor Rocky Anderson didn't have the
authority to approve a request for proposals to replace the service
provider, saying that only the City Council had that power.
In his ruling, Iwasaki said he did not need to decide whether the
governing body was the City Council or the mayor because "the state
of Utah has clearly granted Salt Lake City the power to enter into a
competititave RFP [request for proposals] process for 911 emergency
ambulance service."
The contract if four four years, with extensions for up to 12
years, and is worth an estimated $70 million.
Fire Department spokesman Scott Freitag has said Southwest was
favored because it would be more integrated with the department and
will provide ambulances dedicated to the city.
Southwest's proposal was given to The Tribune, and a ranking sheet
shows the firm out-scored Gold Cross on qualifications, approach,
service and cost factor.
Gold Cross attorney Alan Sullivan said he was reviewing the
company's legal options, including asking for an appeal, and
will "make a determination down the road."
"We're disappointed in the decision," he said.

jbergreen@sltrib.com

 

[Utah_Viper]

Was downtown today. They had a kind of show off of the new rigs, all 15 came Code-2 from stations 1 to the city county building. Once there they set up around the building for photo's.

 

[lavy]

Starting tonight

Southwest takes over tonight at midnight. I got a look at the radios in the rig today. They are set up the same as the fire department radios. No extra talkgroups for Southwest. They all have cell phones so I'd imagine if their admin wants to talk with them, they would just call them. Also, the are locating 2 ambulances in fire stations for up to 1 year while they work out some problems with zoning. One at station 3 in sugarhouse and one at station 11 at the east side of the airport. They are numbered and will go by the radio call sign on Southwest 1-14. There doesn't appear to be any logical reasoning to where they live based on the number. Also, they have gps and will be dispatched closest ambulance to the call based on location not district. Hopefully all will go well!

 

[Utah_Viper]

At 004 on April 3 2006 Salt Lake Fire dispatch performed a radio check with the southwest ambulances. The hand Over is complete and they are now the responding units for SLC. The first official respnse was shortly after by Southwest-1 on a auto accident.

 

[LGLHOOK]

Southwest Officially Online

Salt Lake City fire has just officially conducted roll-call for all Soutwest units @ 00:03