SafeTech Solutions specializes in helping municipalities make their emergency medical services more efficient.
On Wednesday, it will tell the Summit County Council its EMS system is already as efficient as it can be, for the money.
Currently, Summit County contracts with the Park City Fire District to operate the entire county’s ambulance services. Not all the ambulances are dispatched from Park City itself; PCFD keeps one ambulance in Coalville and another in Kamas.
That’s the configuration SafeTech says Summit County should keep.
SafeTech estimated other options would be $2 million to $3 million more expensive annually. Besides being more cost-effective, the study found having one EMS provider eliminates redundancy in the system.
“A single system utilizing seven ambulances is more efficient [than] multiple EMS systems requiring multiple administration[s] and additional ambulance capacity,” the study says.
Those ambulances would rotate depending on call volume. For example, if the Coalville ambulance gets called, another one of the five stored in Park City would move north in case of another emergency.
In stakeholder interviews, SafeTech said people on the county’s east side could share examples of times when ambulances weren’t available in the North Summit and South Summit areas.
“Some interviews indicated concerns that ambulances were pulled from eastern Summit County when the Park City area needed more resources, and some interviewees perceived a lack of equity in how EMS is provided,” the study found.
The consultants argue that using the model of a single EMS provider is the most efficient way to get resources to the most rural areas of the county. It said the tax base is smaller outside of the Park City area and that PCFD initially began providing EMS there because previous self-supported efforts failed.
SafeTech recommends creating a special tax district to fund the EMS service. But no action will be taken Wednesday; it’s just a work session to allow the consultants to present their findings to county councilmembers.
Other items on the agenda include recognizing Paul Caine for over 15 years at the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District and interviewing applicants for vacancies on the North Summit Fire Service District Administrative Control Board.
The main meeting starts at 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Ledges Event Center in Coalville, and on Zoom.
