Milford Mayor Ben Blake’s office announced via press release that the city has entered into a partnership with Nelson Ambulance Service to help transport patients to area hospitals.
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According to the release, the partnership comes with a host of benefits to Milford and its residents including improved patient care, quicker response times, additional ambulances in the city and the region, an enhanced system of quality management, and new non-taxpayer revenue streams to help sustain operations. This partnership will work in conjunction with Milford’s existing fire and medical emergency services.
Milford invests in and employs 113 firefighters, 112 of whom are EMTs, and 27 of whom are also licensed paramedics. Their medical first responders operate out of paramedic engine companies and 3 licensed city ambulances are strategically positioned across Milford to ensure time-critical response for the 5,000 medical calls they answer each year.
According to Fire Chief Douglas Edo, “we meet and exceed the high response time standards established by the National Fire Protection Association, and these impressive response times have produced life-saving results.”
Blake confirmed that “over the past few years, we’ve worked diligently and extensively to develop a better response system for residents. We’ve advocated for state legislative changes and then petitioned the Department of Health to secure these important advancements which will benefit patients and taxpayers.”
While the fire department has long held the first responder designation and provided advanced life support services (ALS) within the city, Connecticut’s Department of Public Health recently assigned Milford the transport designation for basic life support (BLS) ambulance service. This will now allow the fire department to transport patients to area hospitals and bill insurance companies for each level of service, thus creating a revenue stream for the city.
Under this new and enhanced Emergency Medical Services Plan, additional ambulances will be dedicated to the City at all times so that they may respond to emergency scenes faster, according to the press release.
In addition, the city’s EMS officer and Milford Hospital will now provide uniform medical oversight and control to consistently monitor and manage the quality of EMS in the city. City officials hope this measure will allow for more accountability by giving them the right to dictate the standards by which services are provided and also the choice of a provider that will live up to these measures.