Item N7BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS _ �' V
AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
Meeting Date: September 20, 2006
Bulk Item: Yes X No
Division: County Administration
Department: County Administration
Staff Contact Person: T. Willi
AGENDA ITEM WORDING:
Authorization for the County Administrator to initiate inter -facility ground transport between county
hospitals and health care providers.
ITEM BACKGROUND:
At the present time, a service does not exist within Monroe County to perform these transports. Recent
life -threatening incidents have brought this issue to the forefront. Local hospitals often are forced to
utilize private providers from the mainland, which can result in significant transport delays. Revenues
will be realized because of performing this service. Off -duty personnel will be utilized as well as
volunteer Paramedics. The county has existing capacity within its reserve ambulance fleet to meet this
need. Staff will establish a fee schedule to perform this service.
PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION:
CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES:
STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS:
Approval to initiate service immediately.
TOTAL COST: TBD
COST TO COUNTY: TBD
BUDGETED: Yes No X
SOURCE OF FUNDS: Fire Salaries
REVENUE PRODUCING: Yes X No AMOUNT PER MONTH Year
APPROVED BY: County Arty _ OMB/Purchasing _ Risk Management
DIVISION DIRECTOR APPROVAL: .?liamw 7. w6m
(TYPE NAME HERE)
DOCUMENTATION: hicluded _ Not Required X
DISPOSITION: AGENDA ITEM #A_r1_
Revised 2/05
anr-in-cuvo .�. vo
September 15, 2006
Thomas J. Willi
Monroe County Administrator
Suite 205
1100 Simonton Street
Key West, Florida 33050
RE: Monroe County EMS Services
Dear Mr. Willi
H 0 S P L.
Fishermen's Hospital is a community hospital and as such there are some procgdures and
disease processes that require a patient be transferred to a larger hospital. Hospitals are
responsible to make arrangements for safe transportation in these situations.I' In most
cases, our patients could be transferred by ambulance. Some patients require'
equire helicopter
transport.
Over the last year, we have been experiencing increased difficulty in obt�inutg an
ambulance to transport these patients. We are repeated turned down by Marathon EMS,
Monroe County EMS and Key West AMR. Sadly, we are waiting for ambulances to
come to Marathon from Homestead, Miami, or Fort Lauderdale to transport these
patients. Patients end up waiting seven or eight hours or longer for transpgrtation to
another facility. Helicopters are available in some situations but our unreliable weather
frequently makes air travel unavailable.
Over the last nine months, we have transferred 236 patients to other hospital . Thirty
seven of these patients were transferred to Lower Keys Medical Center in I ey West.
Fight patients were transferred to Mariners. Some of these patients had to waiChours for
ambulances from outside Monroe County to come and transport them within otter county,
The other 191 patients were transferred to Miami -area hospitals. A majority of these
patients could have gone by ambulance had one been available.
As you and I discussed, Fishermen's Hospital is responsible to transport these patients if
they require care at a larger facility. This includes payment for transportation if the
patient has no payor source. I am very interested in sitting down with you to discuss the
ability for 4fonroe County EMS to assist us with these transportation issues.
Thank you for your assistance with this matter.
Sincerely,
Ki Bassett,
Chief Executive Officer
3301 Overseas H Marathon FL
Hwy., 33050 a (305) 743 5533 Fax (305) 1-4 3-3962
www.FisheriTtenshospital.com