Marshfield Fire and Rescue Department Partners with the Marshfield Clinic for Ambulance Services
Submitted to FOCUS – Beginning Saturday, July 1, the Marshfield Fire and Rescue Department started a new partnership with the Marshfield Clinic Health System (MCHS) and the Marshfield Medical Center by providing ambulance transportation for patients being transported to/from another hospital for additional specialty care services.
In addition to the interfacility transports, the department will be providing paramedic intercept services to area basic life support (BLS) and Advanced Emergency Medical Technician (AEMT) ambulance services when patients need advanced level of care before arriving at the hospital.
For many years the department has provided these services in a backup role to Ministry Medical Transportation Services (Spirit) but with the recent purchase of the hospital by the Marshfield Clinic and subsequent departure of Spirit from Marshfield there was a need to fill a gap and provide these crucial services.
The Marshfield Fire and Rescue Department saw this need as a way to establish a closer working relationship with the Clinic and started meeting and working closely with MCHS administration to partner with them and provide these services.
The mission statement of the department reads: “The Marshfield Fire and Rescue Department, in partnership with the community, protects and preserves lives and property through assessment, prevention, education, and response”; furthermore the emergency medical services (EMS) vision statement for the department indicates we will “continuously improve patient care by advancing the service’s resources and operations while efficiently adapting to call volume increases.”
It is these two statements, in part that the department believes the addition of these EMS transport services will build a strong partnership with the Marshfield Clinic, enhance the level of pre-hospital care provided to the residents, and meet the mission and vision statements of the department.
The transport service will utilize the current fleet of ambulances and staff and will not impact emergency 911 services in the City of Marshfield or the services provided to the contracted towns and villages for ambulance service. The departments primary mission in EMS is to provide the highest, most appropriate level of care to the citizen’s of Marshfield and the surrounding areas they serve.
Staffing for inter-facility transports will be dependent on the type of transport that is needed and will be staffed at the Advanced EMT, Paramedic, or Critical Care Paramedic level.
Intercept services with outlying BLS ambulance services will always consist of a minimum of two paramedics ensuring all the skills that are permitted to be performed by a paramedic can and will be provided to those who need it.
Department members have been looking forward to beginning this new level of service to the area by partnering with the Marshfield Clinic.
This partnership will take Marshfield EMS to the next level by providing the necessary transfers and intercepts ultimately improving the overall quality of life for those individuals in central Wisconsin. It is also the hope of the clinic and Marshfield Fire and Rescue Department to become a model of a public-private partnership that can be used in other areas of the state.
To learn more or for questions, feel free to call Chief Scott Owen or Deputy Chief of EMS Steve Bakos at (715) 486-2094.
