It seems no matter what I do, about 15% of the students don’t follow the APA format. While this is better than the 33% we were averaging a decade ago, it remains frustrating.

And – yes – I am up to my elbows in APA citation protocols in my academic adventure.

Yesrerday’s article in the Washington Post described adult (over 20 years old) undergraduate students earning a bachelor’s degree within a single eight-week session. I wonder of their papers have to be in APA format?

If your fire department requires college credits … this may work for you.

DayBook

Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators. 4/19/2026 by Todd Wallack, The Washington Post

It takes most college students at least four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. Christie Williams finished in three months.

The North Carolina human resources executive spent two months racking up credits through web tutorials after work in 2024, then raced through 11 online classes at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in four weeks. Later that year, she went back to earn her master’s — in just five weeks. The two degrees cost a total of just over $4,000.

Since then, she has coached a thousand other students on how to speed through the state college, shaving off years and thousands of dollars from the usual cost of a degree.

“Why wouldn’t you do that?” Williams asked. “It’s kind of a no-brainer if you know about it.”

Many U.S. schools have been experimenting with ways to speed up traditional college programs to reduce the burgeoning cost and help students move into the workforce faster. Some offer three-year bachelor’s programs, reducing the number of credits needed for a diploma by one quarter. Many more allow students to enroll in college classes while still in high school.

But the breakneck pace of the fastest online programs concerns some academics, who say there is a big difference in what students can learn in weeks or months compared with three or more years.

The phenomenon — sometimes referred to as degree hacking, college speed runs or hyper-accelerated degrees — has spawned a cottage industry of influencers making videos about how quickly they earned their degrees and encouraging others to follow suit.
Ryan Swayt delivers tips on how to finish an online degree quickly in a YouTube video. (Courtesy of Ryan Swayt)

Supporters of the approach tout it as an affordable, convenient way for people to earn credentials they need for their careers. Others, including some online students and academic officials, expressed concern about what the super-accelerated students are missing, and whether a quick path devalues degrees.

“We want diplomas that mean something,” said Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents more than 600 liberal arts colleges and universities. “I would prefer to have some of these degrees called something other than a bachelor’s.”

Nationally, it’s hard to know exactly how many students are graduating so quickly. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that 44 percent of students finish a bachelor’s degree within four years but doesn’t offer numbers for shorter time periods.

The University of Maine’s Presque Isle campus has more than 3,000 students in its online YourPace program, according to the school. The school’s president said the program is designed to help older, nontraditional students rapidly obtain an affordable degree they may need for a raise, promotion or new job — students who don’t need the traditional longer college experience on campus that many young adults crave.

“They literally just need a certificate” to help their careers, said Raymond Rice, president of the Presque Isle campus. He said the program is open only to students age 20 and older, in part to avoid competing with its traditional four-year program on campus.

Of the nearly 300 students who earned a bachelor’s in the YourPace program in fall 2024, the vast majority finished in less than a year. More than 1 in 4 finished their entire degree course load in a single eight-week session, half the length of a traditional academic semester.

Under a system known as competency-based education, students typically must finish several assignments or pass a test to prove they learned the material, regardless of how long it takes. In a philosophy class Rice oversees, students have to show they learned the online material by completing five five-page essays and one longer paper that’s up to 10 pages.

There are no class meetings. No group discussions. No weekly assignments. Nothing to slow students down.

“The students demonstrate how much they can learn as quickly as they can,” Rice said. “They take as long or as short as they need to get there.”

At some schools, students can sign up for as many classes as they want for a flat price per term.

For instance, the YourPace program in Maine charges $1,800 per eight-week session for undergraduate programs and $2,450 for graduate degrees. That gives students a powerful financial incentive to push through the programs as quickly as possible to limit the cost and avoid taking out significant student loans. And low-income undergraduate students may be eligible for federal Pell grants that help cover the cost.

“That’s what is so dramatic and so impactful,” Rice said.

One reason some working adults can speed through the programs is that many have taken at least some college classes in the past and have credits to transfer. More than 43 million students in the United States started college but never earned a degree, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

The online schools best known for accelerated degrees, such as Maine’s Presque Isle campus and Western Governors University, also let students transfer in as many as three-quarters of the credits from nontraditional sources. That includes giving students credit for past learning on the job; passing tests that show they already know the material; or completing tutorials from online learning platforms such as Study.com, Sophia Learning and StraighterLine, which can often take less time to complete than traditional college courses.

The head of the New England Commission of Higher Education, which oversees the accreditation of the University of Maine system, told The Washington Post that he had never heard of students completing a bachelor’s degree in only a few months — either at the Presque Isle campus or any other accredited university. He said that is something his organization may decide to investigate.

“If students are getting a baccalaureate degree in a few months, the commission could certainly inquire, ‘Is there integrity to the degree to be awarded?’” said Larry Schall, president of the commission. (Shortly after Schall got off the phone with The Post, he said, he called the campus to ask them to look into the issue.)

Serenity James of Atlanta completed 16 courses on an online learning platform in 22 days. That gave her most of the credits she needed for a bachelor’s degree at Western Governors. She finished the remaining 13 classes in two months last year and spent 2½ months earning a master’s of business administration. Altogether, she said, the degrees cost less than $9,000, which was covered by a scholarship, her employer and a federal Pell Grant.

Western Governors, one of the largest colleges in the country with more than 194,000 students, did not respond to requests for interviews or additional data on how fast students finish. The nonprofit school’s website says that students finish their bachelor’s degrees in an average of 2.5 years, but that many “finish significantly faster than that!”

James, who has a 6-year-old daughter and a full-time job, said she never would have been able to attend a traditional college in person. She said she had little contact with her professors or fellow students but was in touch regularly with a mentor assigned to her by the college.

The work has already paid off. After finishing the degrees, she earned a promotion to a new higher-paying job at her employer, a national health insurance company.

“It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, honestly,” said James, 25. She said no one has questioned how long it took her to earn her degree or the name of the school.

She said she was able to learn the material quickly and proved it by passing tests or completing papers.

“People should do what works for them,” she said. “If people think they need four years, if that’s what you think you need to understand information, then that’s wonderful. There are some people who don’t need that long.”

Some users on a Reddit forum for Western Governors have pleaded with peers to stop bragging that they earned degrees in weeks or months.

“Publicly flaunting speedruns damages WGU’s reputation and devalues every degree, including your own,” one user said. The complaints spurred Reddit moderators to create a separate forum for accelerated students to reduce the conflict.

The head of the accreditor for Western Governors said she is confident that the school complies with its standards. The school just has a different model that allows students to move at their own pace, said Selena Grace, president of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

“Students are demonstrating competency,” Grace said.

Historically, the Department of Education has recommended that students spend at least three hours per week per credit hour for a traditional class, including classroom meetings and homework. So a typical three-credit class might require 135 hours of work over a 15-week semester. But there’s no equivalent time recommendation for competency-based courses.

Some of the ultrafast finishers have also sparked worries about cheating.

In January, Purdue Global stopped students from taking an unlimited amount of classes in a term without permission in its ExcelTrack program, citing concerns about “academic integrity and the value of a Purdue Global degree.” That led one YouTuber to claim that Purdue had just made it impossible to get a bachelor’s in six months at the school.

“ExcelTrack is an accelerated degree program, but it was never intended to be a six-month degree,” Purdue Global spokeswoman Amy Hawkinson said in an email. The school said students finish a bachelor’s degree on average in a little more than two years, half the length of a traditional bachelor’s program, mainly because the school gives credit to many students for past learning.

The growing interest in fast degrees has spawned a mini-industry of coaches offering advice on how to find a school, figure out what classes to take and speed through the programs.

College Hacked offers a 50-minute coaching session for $295. Ryan Swayt, who completed his bachelor’s degree at Western Governors in nine months, offers everything from a $5 how-to book to extensive one-on-one coaching sessions for $1,500, a program he calls Degree Hacking Academy.

Swayt also has recorded hundreds of YouTube videos with tips on how to finish college just as fast as he did or faster. He teased interviews with other fast finishers with titles like “8 week bachelor’s degree,” “62 days” and “3 months.”

Williams, the graduate of Maine’s YourPace program who earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 2024, is also selling advice. Early last year, she started helping people create course plans for the program in her spare time. She charges $99 to $199 per student.

Like many of her clients, Williams has never been to the Presque Isle campus in northern Maine.

But that will soon change.

This year, Williams reenrolled at the school for five weeks to earn a third degree — an associate’s degree in liberal studies — mainly so she can update her knowledge of the school and walk in the school’s graduation in May.

Williams said she is looking forward to finally meeting in person with dozens of people she helped online. But she’s especially looking forward to attending graduation with her 22-year-old daughter, Makayla Quackenbush, who earned a bachelor’s degree of her own at the school this past summer.

Like her mother, Quackenbush first spent months amassing credits from online learning platforms.

And just like her mother, she finished her bachelor’s degree in a single eight-week session — summa cum laude — with highest honors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/04/19/accelerated-college-degree-hacking

What started with posting 4-6 curated news items in an early morning hour drifted into 20-30 posts a day, taking two hours in the morning and one to two hours in the afternoon/evening.   It was entertaining and addictive.

There have been persistent efforts to hack into the page. I conducted a major security renovation of the business suite a couple of months ago, during which I found that rogue agents had become strategic partners. April 12 was another hack. FaceBook has been acting weird over the last couple of months, leading me to believe the Company Commander page has been corrupted.

This shutdown is a good thing because I need my early morning time to focus on proposing, developing, and delivering my Public Policy PhD dissertation. I need a new place to track issues and trends in the fire and ems industry that eventually show up in a class presentation or a deep-dive article.

I was a fan and follower of Dr. Jerry Pournelle, always reading his Chaos Manor columns. He was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career.

His blog site included a “DayBook” page where he posted items related to what projects he was working on, correspondence with followers and colleagues, articles of interest, and random pictures. I will try using the same format here.

My mornings will be spent working on my dissertation proposal, the last step to completing my Ph.D. in Public Policy. Later in the day, I will post a DayBook. It will have a few fire/EMS curated news items, as well as articles or media that I plan to use in my classes or projects.

Building a workable research and writing process

Most of this week was focused on a trial-and-error process to develop a dissertation research and writing process that will not drive me crazy. The tools and techniques I used to write the fire officer textbook – Microsoft Word with EndNotes and Grammarly – are not the most effective now. MS Word/EndNote struggled with a 35-page white paper with 55 references that I wrote last year.

My document must be in Google Docs. The first reference management system I tried worked pretty good, but it cannot handle the massive number of references a dissertation requires. The second reference management system can handle the workload, but 10% of the 30-some references in my first document are not properly formatted in APA 7. The online information and YouTube videos have not been helpful. Arrgh!

2026 April 19 DayBook

Yantic fire chief continues to lead shuttered department. 4/18/2026 by Daniel Drainville The Day News

Norwich [CT] — Chief Robert “Bobby” Allen and Deputy Chief Frank Blanchard, in an uncontested vote by members of the Yantic Fire Engine Co. No. 1, were reelected last Sunday to their roles, making them the first fire officers in city history to lead a shuttered fire department.

Allen, 61, was elected to his second term as chief and Blanchard, 57, to his second as deputy chief. The two lifetime members of the department ran unopposed.

Last Tuesday, the two sat at the wooden table in the engine bay where two Yantic fire trucks once were parked.

“There’s not a lot going on right now,” Allen said. “There really isn’t. It’s just keeping everyone engaged.”

It was in early February when the city shut down the 179-year-old Yantic department, cutting off its access to city funds, stopping them from responding to fire and medical calls, and repossessing their five fire trucks that had been purchased by the city.

City Fire Chief Sam Wilson and City Manager John Salomone stated the reason was that Yantic had failed to sign an agreement to comply with Unified Command, the new city-wide fire policy they established last August.

Yantic, along with the Taftville, Occum and Laurel Hill volunteer departments, have sued the city over the policy. The fifth department, East Great Plain, has not.

Fire departments typically do not shut down. And when they do, it is usually because of a lack of members.

But Yantic has 58 active members.

Allen, elected to his first term as chief last April, has become the face of a department at odds with the city. And yet, he has maintained his usual light-hearted disposition.

“I don’t dwell on it,” Allen said. “I think the big thing is just to keep the guys engaged on training. Keep them informed on what’s going on — on the legal aspects. And, just keep driving forward, and keep the positivity here. … I think you have more guys at the station now than we did when we were in service, because they want to keep it together. They want to keep trainings and things like that.”

Leading a shuttered department has also meant speaking at public meetings against the city’s action and rallying public support.

Allen said other departments, like Taftville and Lisbon, have invited his firefighters to attend their drills and use their equipment and trucks for training.

Ashley Nicholas, secretary for the Yantic department, said Allen has done a good job keeping morale up.

Allen said during the last six weeks, the department has polished all of its antique equipment.

“It’s brought a lot of guys together to come down,” Allen said. “And I think in the long run, you’ll see this crew of guys, that when you look back on it, they bonded probably even more now. Because there’s one common goal now, which is to remain positive and get our doors back open.”

Leading the legal charge

Allen’s and Blanchard’s leadership has also involved having to get involved in the legal process.

A few weeks ago, Allen and Blanchard, along with leaders of the other three volunteer departments and their lawyer, Mark Kovack, engaged in a single mediation session with the city in an attempt to resolve the lawsuits short of a court hearing. That mediation was unsuccessful. But Blanchard said they and the city are still in what he called “back channel communications.”

“The ball’s in their court,” he said.

Salomone and Wilson want Yantic to agree to the fundamental principles of Unified Command, which established a single command structure with Wilson at the top, and standardized training, communications and emergency response protocols for both paid and volunteer fire services. But the four departments want to retain their autonomy, continuing to be in charge of emergency calls in their own districts.

Allen said he just laughs when City Manager John Salomone says Yantic will still have its autonomy with Unified Command.

Allen said what Salomone means is “They’ll still be able to do their steak suppers and chicken barbecues.”

“(But) we’re a firehouse that does steaks. Not a steakhouse that goes to fires,” Allen said.

Blanchard said even newer, younger members of the department, in a short time, have grown to like the camaraderie and “family style” of the department.

“I think that’s a huge draw for a lot of people,” Blanchard said. “They want to help the community, but the social aspect. This is a place where you can stop in with your family. Cook some hamburgers and hot dogs on the back patio. Walk your dog out in the field. It can be like a second home.”

Yantic, he said, has prided itself on being a place where members know they can come spend time, and have their efforts go appreciated, while they hone their skills in public safety.

Allen just retired from 42 years as a driver for UPS. He said it’s been a lot easier to lead the department while not going to work at night.

He cracked a joke about his email address, UPSFireman1847: “I’m going to have to get rid of UPS and fireman right now. It’s just going to be 1847.”

Members say Allen’s uncontested reelection shows they are happy with how he’s handled the shutdown.

“Everyone’s behind him,” said Blanchard, who served 20 years as chief. “Not only me. Everyone’s behind him, to make sure that this place succeeds.”

“The passion he has for this department is second to none,” added Blanchard. “Just like everyone that was before him. And he’s leading the fight. He drew the short straw.”

Allen said continuing the department’s lineage of esteemed leadership is important to him.

“One thing that I think is huge for this fire department — since Walt Kane was chief in 1960 — is that Yantic has always strived to do the best at things. Firefighting. Public events. Yantic has set the bar high for themselves. And we constantly strive, you know, to maintain that level of consistency.”

But Allen stressed the most important thing to him is that his department continues the work that began in 1847.

“We’re still doing the job, and doing it well. That’s really the message,” he said.

https://theday.com/news/886431/yantic-fire-chief-continues-to-lead-shuttered-department

‘A job that’s equal for everyone.’ Wu appoints Rodney Marshall as Boston’s first Black fire commissioner. 4/16/2026 by Niki Griswold The Boston Globe

Mayor Michelle Wu on Thursday appointed Rodney Marshall as Boston’s new fire commissioner, making him the first Black man to lead a department that has long struggled to diversify its ranks to reflect the city it serves.

Marshall’s rise to the top of the department marked a historic moment in its nearly 350-year existence. Marshall, 58, has served in the Boston Fire Department for 35 years, most recently as a deputy chief and one of its chiefs of operations.

He will be formally sworn in to the department’s top job later this month, replacing Paul F. Burke, who has led the city’s fire department since 2022. Burke reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 for Massachusetts firefighters this month, according to the mayor’s office.

As recently as two years ago, the department’s effort to recruit more women and people of color was still struggling through fits and smarts: 71 percent of that academy class was white and 93 percent were men. Demographic data the city posts online show that 73 percent of the department’s employees is white, even though 44 percent of the city population is.

“We’re going to make this a job that’s equal for everyone,” Marshall said Thursday. “Men, women, people of color — whoever wants this job is going to have the opportunity.”

He pointed to the department’s efforts to recruit new firefighters from all of the city’s neighborhoods through the cadet program, as well as its Teen Academy — a paid summer job program for 14- to 18 year-olds that introduces youth to fire services.

The mayor’s office did not immediately provide updated demographic data for the department or its most recent fire cadet class.

“It’s important that we reflect who we are in public safety, in our schools, in the cabinet, and wherever there’s positions of power in the city,” said state Senator Lydia Edwards of East Boston, who has previously criticized the department for its handling of reports of racial and gender discrimination.

But while Marshall’s appointment marks a turning point, Edwards said, she is most impressed by the Boston native’s decades of service, which has earned him the deep respect of his peers.

Wu on Thursday thanked Burke for his leadership, calling him “a shining example of what it means to be a public servant.” She said it is an “honor” to appoint Marshall as his successor.

“He served all across our city in East Boston, Back Bay, Brighton, South Boston, and has seen firsthand the needs of our neighborhoods and the people who call them home,” Wu said of Marshall. ”Rodney has earned a reputation as someone who earns trust, and that’s the kind of leadership this department, the oldest and the best, deserves.”

Burke also celebrated Marshall’s promotion, saying he has personally witnessed Marshall’s “steady leadership, sound judgment, and commitment to our mission” over his four years as fire commissioner.

“My title might have been Commissioner, but Chief Marshall and myself were equals,” Burke said. “We did everything together. His instincts were unbelievable when things got tough, … and I’m proud that it’s him. It couldn’t be a better day.”

Marshall first joined the fire department in 1991, before rising through the ranks to become deputy fire chief in 2022. He was recognized by the department in 1998 for saving several lives during a six-alarm fire, and earned another commendation for rescuing people trapped in a bus in 2013, according to Wu’s office.

Marshall also designed and launched the fire department’s cadet program, which aims to recruit young Boston residents.

Marshall is a Grove Hall native and graduate of Boston College.

Joined by his family, friends, and colleagues on Thursday, Marshall emphasized his commitment to prioritizing the health and safety of Boston residents and his fellow firefighters.

“It takes a team to assemble a 50-foot ladder and stand it up; it takes a team to stretch a two-and-a-half hose line down the hallway; and it’s the strength of that team that makes the difference between life and death on this job,” Marshall said. “I take this job very seriously. I love this department, and I love this city.”

Marshall’s appointment comes after Wu has seen the departure of several high-profile Black officials from her administration in recent months. Jessicah Pierre, Wu’s former chief of communications, left the administration last November after Wu resoundingly won a second term. Segun Idowu, the city’s former chief of economic opportunity and inclusion, resigned from his job in January.

Then last month, Wu’s tourism chief, John Borders IV, stepped down for a role with Boston’s new women’s professional soccer team, Boston Legacy FC.

The Boston Fire Department has long faced criticism for its purportedly change-resistant culture, and lack of diversity, as well as reports of racial discrimination, and sexual harassment and assault.

In early February, 12 elected officials of color, including City Councilor Brian Worrell, sent a letter to Wu urging her to name the city’s first Black fire commissioner.

Marshall’s appointment is well-deserved based solely on his resume, Worrell told the Globe, but it’s also “an inspiration, and it continues to show that Boston will not be a city that sets barriers on any of their residents.”

“This is us continuing to take that step in the right direction, making sure that we create a fire department that is reflective of every neighborhood in the city and that every resident could see themselves in,” Worrell said.

The city hosted the announcement of Marshall’s appointment Thursday at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Boys & Girls Club in Dorchester, where his two children attend after school programs.

Whenever he picks them up while in uniform, Marshall said it sparks the curiosity of other kids.

“I love these questions because they present an opportunity to have a conversation about this job, this profession, and this department,” Marshall said. “These conversations open kids’ eyes to what’s possible, and to considering a path” they didn’t know existed.

Marshall said that, as a child growing up, he didn’t know what firefighters did, and remembers walking past a fire house on Washington Street that always had its doors closed. This summer, he said he plans to issue a directive for all fire stations to keep their doors open during the warm months.

“I want city kids, kids from every neighborhood, to be able to walk in, see the trucks, talk to the firefighters, and experience the wonder and excitement of seeing this job up close,” Marshall said.

His hope, he said, is that one of those children will grow up and land the department’s top job — like he did.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/16/metro/rodney-marshall-boston-fire-commissioner/?p1=BGSearch_Advanced_Results

This week’s ask:

1. Is there a newer ambulance replacement guideline than Dan Fellow’s April 2016 EMS World article?

You can reply below or email michaelward@isu.edu.

Background to these lecture topics

EMS financing and vehicle/durable medical equipment procurement are volatile topics due to the pandemic and the DOGE-driven federal reorganization. I anticipate that both of these lectures will require major updates for the Fall 2026 semester.

11: Financing EMS

The 3300 lecture starts with review of the July 22, 2025 “The true cost of a 911 call: Breaking down EMS economics” by Matt Zavadsky pubished by ems1.com.

This replaces the 2019 NAEMT/AimHi webinar “How EMS is Financed” presented by Chip Decker and Matt Zavadsky. They describe the sources of revenue:

1. Fees For Service
2. Tax Subsidy
3. Other:
   • Grants
   • Special Assessments
     • such as a Tax Levy
   • Ground Emergency Medical Transport (GEMT) program
   • Subscriptions

A review of the payor types and their payment performance.:

• Medicare
• Medicaid
• Private Pay
• Commercial Insurance
• Other

Fees For Service: Deeper Dive

Describe how Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) differentiates Suppliers and Providers. Describe how ambulance services is identified as a supplier and its reimbursement implications. Briefly discuss the unique reimbursement opportunity for hospital-based ambulance services.

Scan the decades of documentation showing that the insurance reimbursement fails to cover the direct cost of an ambulance transport. Look at the additional “cost of preparation” for 9-1-1 services. Review February 17, 2025, PWW Advisory Group “Quantifying the gap between expenses and revenue for EMS services: Takeaways from the First CMS Data Collection Report on Ambulance Services to enhance service levels and reduce costs of service delivery” [https://www.ems1.com/ems-trend-report/quantifying-the-gap-between-expenses-and-revenue-for-ems-services]. Their conclusion:

The average revenue shortfall for all ambulance suppliers is 57% for every transport performed.

Tax Levies: Deeper Dive

Doing a deeper dive into tax levies. Start with describing the 1997 failure of the Seattle/King County Medic One Foundation tax levy vote. Review the narrow post-pandemic failure of many tax levy proposals for emergency ambulance service. Describe the efforts it took Canyon County Paramedics, Idaho, to get a tax levy passed in 2025 after two failures in 2024.

Ground Emergency Medical Transport (GEMT) Program: Deeper Dive

A federally funded state supplement payment program that is likely to be reduced or eliminated due to the current government reorganization. Review the March 11, 2025 PWW Advisory Group assessment of Texas GEMT and its national implications.

Fire Department takeover: Overstated revenue, understated costs, and ignorance of health care insurance reimbursement practices

Ambulance billing is complex. Many hospital-based EMS systems contract out for ambulance billing even when they do the rest of their medical billing in-house. Several of the largest fire-based ambulance services have faced significant penalties from CMS/US Justice Department due to improper billing practices. We will examine the financial issues of a fire department takeover of ambulance services, with 2025 examples from Sonoma County, California, and Evansville, Indiana.

Review the 2023 financial profile of AMR’s Multnomah County, Oregon, operations in light of a years-long fight over paramedic ambulance staffing. Discuss the failed effort of Santa Barbara County Fire Department’s effort to take over ambulance service from AMR in 2025 – and what to do with 35 never used fire department ambulances.

Wrap up lecture showing the PWW Advisory Group/NAEMT The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Potential Impacts on EMS: A Wake-Up Call for Financial Sustainability “living document” to highlight the potential revenue, human resources and tax implications of the OBBBA on the EMS system and EMS employees.

Required Readings/viewings

Zavadsky, M. (2025 July 22) The true cost of a 911 call: Breaking down EMS economics. ems1.com https://www.ems1.com/ems-management/the-true-cost-of-a-911-call-breaking-down-ems-economics

Reference: 2019 “Follow The Money: How EMS is Financed” NAEMT/AimHi [1 hour 3:34 minutes]

PWW Advisory Group. (2025 March 11). Analysis of 2023 vs. 2022 Texas GEMT Funding Distribution. https://aimhi.mobi/news/13473236

PWW Advisory Group and NAEMT (2025 July 17) Table of Major Provisions In HR1 That May Impact EMS. https://aimhi.mobi/news/13522232

Welsch, Nick.(2025 July 23) Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Announces Retirement: Hartwig Fought to Take Over AMR Ambulance Monopoly. Santa Barbara Independent. https://www.independent.com/2025/07/23/santa-barbara-county-fire-chief-announces-retirement/

12: Ambulance/Durable Medical Equipment Procurement

The 3300 lecture describes the procurement process for vehicles and durable medical equipment, highlighting the parameters that differentiate a Request For Proposal versus a Purchase Order.

Identify the special situation of ambulances and durable medical equipment, such as the KKK-A-1822 ambulance classification scheme and Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certification of durable medical equipment operating in an out-of-hospital environment.

Brief review of our current supply chain position in the post-pandemic marketplace.

When To Replace An Ambulance

Review Ron Fellow’s description about the Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA) fleet replacement goals:

• Maintain a fleet size capable to 133% of peak-of-day operations
• Replace after 150,000 to 250,000 miles
• Replace after 4 to 7 years

Describe the process and value of remounting Type 1 and Type 3 ambulance boxes on new trucks.

Individual Assignment: Construct a 3 year ambulance replacement plan for BengalCare Mobile Health. You inherent a fleet of 16 ambulances from Mercy 911, Mercy Transport, and Mount Pleasant Fire Department. Using Ron Fellow’s RAA guidelines, your subject matter expert provides a spreadsheet analyzing all ambulances.

BengalCare Mobile Health peak deployment is 12 ambulances, will need 16 ambulances to get to 133% peak-of-day. Of the inherited fleet of 16, only 11 are roadworthy. Using a state cooperative purchasing program price guide for new ambulance purchases and remounts, identify how you will update the fleet with the $375,000 budgeted for new/remounted ambulances each year?

Required Readings/viewings

“Wheeled Coach Walk-Around, FDIC 2024” (5:02 minutes)

Featured picture: Penn Township Ambulance Association. May 8, 2024.  Today, Chief Grant inspected Unit 228 at the REV Group, Inc. remount factory. Progress is on track for expected completion at the end of the month. The remount process avoids about $50,000 of expense versus purchasing a new modular box construction.

This week’s asks:

1. Has ambulance staffing gotten easier in 2025 than it was in 2020?
2. What is driving caregiver turnover today: workload (hours), work conditions, or pay?
3. Has the opioid overdose crisis created new high-demand census tracts beyond the high poverty communities?

You can respond below or email michaelward@isu.edu.

Background to this week’s lectures

Fifty years of ambulance operations, with changing reimbursement and expanded community expectations, make the original vision of two paramedics responding to a cardiac arrest by themselves quaint. Responding to a witnessed cardiac arrest is still a life-threatening situation where EMS can make a significant difference. It looks a lot different in 2025.

How units are deployed and what type of caregivers staff them have gone through many models. EMS 3300’s goal is to explain ambulance deployment and staffing, identify current issues, and provide examples.

While an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at The George Washington University, I studied how Los Angeles City and Baltimore fire departments were handling the 1999/2000 crisis of overwhelmed paramedic ambulance demand. Unexpectedly, both departments recently received detailed third-party evaluations of their ambulance services – some of that research is included in these lectures. Finally, the students will determine how to deploy and staff BengalCare units for River and Sully counties.

9: Ambulance Deployment

The 3300 lecture starts with a 1968 UCLA public health research project: An Analysis of the Demand for Emergency Ambulance Service in an Urban Area. They analyzed the Los Angeles City emergency ambulance data from 1964-1967.

Emergency ambulances were provided by Central Receiving Hospital in the downtown area and commercial ambulance services that were supplemented by Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) ambulances in the San Fernando Valley. John C. Hisserich was one of the authors who used the same data in his public health dissertation, which took a deeper dive into urban emergency ambulance service demand determinants.

Using demand based on census tracts, we can show how poverty drives ambulance demand. Hisserich observed in his analysis, “Highest (ambulance) demands came from downtown, commercial (census) tracts inhabited by lonely, unemployed males who constitute the least mobile, most ‘hard-core’ poor in the city.” Of the 632 Los Angeles census tracts, 57 tracts generated 25% of the emergency ambulance workload (1964-1967).

These tracts are persistent. A 2020 economic development analysis showed that the 13 census tracts identified by Hisserich as part of the “skid row” areas have maintained a poverty rate of 79% for 38 years. Poverty is persistent, but the predominantly Black population is now predominantly Hispanic.

When LAFD was responding to 24 homeless encampment fires a day in Spring 2020, most of them were in the same census tracts. The 2023 Citygate LLC Los Angeles Fire Department: Standards of Cover Analysis identified two clusters of the top ten busiest engines, trucks, and rescue ambulances.

The individual unit-hour utilization (UHU) measures for these units significantly exceed 30 percent [UHU above 0.30] for long, consecutive hours at a time. The volume and simultaneous demand on the top 10 to top 28 LAFD stations is the highest Citygate has ever measured in a metro client.

The clusters cover most of the same 57 census tracts identified in 1968.

Heat Maps

Students are introduced to heat maps as a way to envision system-wide workload. Here is the heat map for the BengalCare Mobile Health ambulance service area:

System Status Management

Students are introduced to Stout’s System Status Management, also called Dynamic Deployment, by describing static and dynamic deployment. We preview Dale Loberger’s 2022 “System Status Management Strategies for Success” that was presented in the Fitch and Associates LLC Pinnacle Webinar Series.

Deploying the BengalCare Mobile Health Ambulances

BengalCare is replacing a combination of hospital and volunteer fire department ambulances that served River and Sully Counties. The heat map showed where the units were located:

Individual Student Assignment:

Required readings/viewings

Stout, J. (1983). System status management: the strategy of ambulance placement. Journal of Emergency Medical Services, 8(5), 22-32. http://emsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/System-Status-Mangement-The-Strategy-of-Ambulance-Placement-22-32-1983-05-JEMS.pdf

Loberger, D. (2022 June 21). “System Status Management: Strategies for Success.” In Pinnacle Webinar Series. [58:04 minutes]

10: Ambulance Staffing

The 3300 lecture starts with a description of Unit Hour Utilization (UHU), one of the Stout metrics. Apply the metric when looking at LAFD and Baltimore ambulance workload at three points: 1999/2000, 2007 (after all of the changes made in response to the paramedic ambulance workload), and now – Baltimore (2021 FACETS assessment) and LAFD (2023 Citygate analysis).

Demonstrate the 2022 NASEMO Shift Schedule Fatigue Risk Analyzer and review the findings from the 2023 EMS Sleep Health Study.

Walk the student through a reorganization of a multiple-hospital-based EMS system that used UHU to document workload changes when combining three separate ambulance silos (9-1-1, interfacility, and dedicated township contracts) into a regional “first-come-first-served” ambulance system. BengalCare Mobile Health will be doing the same thing, folding the interfacility transports into the 9-1-1 service.

Describe the impact when an organization experiences a vacancy rate of funded positions that rises above 11% – that point when there are not enough remaining employees to cover the overtime needs. This leads to involuntary overtime and mandatory call backs.

Share the Wake County 2022 and Richmond Ambulance Authority 2024 experiences in resolving significant position vacancies.

BengalCare Ambulance Staffing

Students are provided with detailed historic workload data, showing a system-wide UHU of 0.41. Small Group Activity: Build a BengalCare Mobile Health work schedule:

Required readings/viewings

Patterson, P. D., Martin, S. E., Weaver, M. D., Brassil, B. N., Hsiao, W. H., Okerman, T. I., Seitz, S. T., Patterson, C. G., Messina, O. R., Herbert, B. M., & Robinson, K. (2023, January). The emergency medical services sleep health study (Report No. DOT HS 813 391). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/65893

(2022) Fatigue Risk Management in EMS Project Summary and Webtool Demo.

Featured picture: Just before 5:20 a.m. on Sunday, April 2, 2023, Long Beach Fire Department BLS 16 responded to a 9-1-1 call. The single-role “Ambulance Operators” were on hour 68 of a 72-hour tour, where they got between four to six hours of rest between about 57 responses. Both caregivers fell asleep, and the ambulance slammed into a power pole, a crosswalk sign, and a wall. The crew suffered minor injuries.

(4 April 2023) Long Beach unions say ambulance crash highlights staffing shortage. KCAL CBS. Accessed July 13, 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/long-beach-unions-say-ambulance-crash-highlights-staffing-shortage/

This Week’s asks:

1. Is there a newer video showing telecommunicator providing dispatcher CPR, using a tiered response protocol, to replace the 2018 Pitt County NC example?
2. Is there research looking at the impact of non-transport paramedic units (chase cars or paramedic-capable fire companies) on patient outcomes? Not looking at community paramedics.
3. Have other EMS agencies altered their response time goals using the same process that the Mecklenburg (NC) EMS Agency used?

You can respond in the comments or email michaelward@isu.edu

Background to this week’s lectures

Between 1999 and 2024 a core course in the Master’s of Emergency Health Services (EHS) at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) was “EHS 640: High Performance EMS.” Stephen Dean was an early adopter of Jack Stout’s Public Utility Model for Pinellas County, Florida, and wrote the original course while a visiting professor at UMBC and obtaining his Ph.D.

Kurt Kruperman and Jon Washko, both adjunct faculty members at UMBC’s EHS, updated the course in 2010. Kruperman was getting his Ph.D. They obtained support from the American Ambulance Association, digitizing EMS Structured for Quality: Best Practices in Designing, Managing and Contracting for Emergency Ambulance Service to use as the textbook. Wasko provided ambulance deployment and financial exercises.

In 2021, while working on my Ph.D., I updated the course. Unfortunately, the same post-pandemic economic forces that dismantled some high-performance public utility ambulance services also impacted EHS. We needed to go where the students and the funded research were. EHS morphed into the Department of Emergency and Disaster Health Systems (EDHS). EHS 640 is gone.

Many metrics from the Stout public utility model, such as unit hour utilization, dynamic ambulance deployment, and response time performance measurement, are embedded into the best practices of emergency service systems. Both lectures this week reflect the work I did for the 2021 EHS 640 course and my Ph.D.

6: What is “High-Performance EMS”?

The EMS 3300 lecture follows the origin story of economist Jack Stout starting as a Systems Analyst with the Arkansas Health Systems Foundation (one of the five 1972 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare EMS funded demonstration projects), to research fellow at the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Economic and Management Research – where the Public Utility Model (PUM) was developed.

The 1980s witnessed the creation of nine Public Utility Model EMS Systems, starting with Kansas City. The high-performance EMS (HP-EMS) body of knowledge comes from the dozens of Stout articles published in the trade magazine Journal of Emergency Medical Services from 1983-1989. Stout’s The Fourth Party organization became the focus for all HP-EMS development and advocacy.

We describe the six elements of HP-EMS as articulated by Jack Stout and Jerry Overton in 2002, and compare/contrast with the 2025 Academy of International Mobile Healthcare Integration (AIMHi) “High Performance System Design.”

We review three elements challenging the public utility model:

• Increased expenses and labor costs while reimbursements decline
• Inconsistent or negligent ambulance authority oversight
• Political pressure from fire department

Wrap up by evaluating how well Bengalcare Mobile Health aligns with the AIMHi HP-EMS System Design.

Required readings/viewings:

Richmond Ambulance Authority (2022) RAA-High Performance EMS. (2:18 minutes)

Stout, J. (1985a). Public Utility Model Revisited: Part 1: Origins. Journal of Emergency Medical Services (February), 55-58, 62-63. http://emsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Public-Utility-Model-Revisited-Part-1-_-Origins-55-58-62-63-1985-02-JEMS.pdf

Stout, J. (1985b). Public Utility Model Revisited: Part 2: 10 Essential Features. Journal of Emergency Medical Services (March) 71 – 74. http://emsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Public-Utility-Model-Revisited_Part-2-10-Essential-Features_1985-March-71-74-JEMS.pdf

Stout, J. (1985c). Public Utility Model Revisited: Part 3. Journal of Emergency Medical Services (May) 58-64. http://emsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Tulsa-Public-Utility-Model-Revisited-Part-3_1985-May-58-64-JEMS.pdf

Dean, S. (2004) Public Utility Model EMS. EMS World. 33(3) 87-91.

Bledsoe, B. (2003 December) EMS Myth #8: Public Utility Models are the most efficient model for providing prehospital care. EMS World.

Redlener, M., Buckler, D. G., Sondheim, S. E., Yeturu, S. K., Loo, G. T., Munjal, K. G., … Crowe, R. P. (2024). A National Assessment of EMS Performance at the Response and Agency Level. Prehospital Emergency Care, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2023.2283886

Multnomah County Ombudsman (2024 May) “County has longstanding contractual authority to hold AMR accountable, and needs to comply with code.”

7: Clinically Significant Response Time

The 3300 lecture guides students through a 9-1-1 call, explaining how the Clawson Medical Priority Dispatch system operates. Also discuss the APCO model.

Introduce students to the Seattle/King County Medic One program. Describe the 1979 “Project Restart” study of cardiac arrest survival in King County – 604 cardiac arrests between April 1976 to August 1977. Show how the results of this peer-reviewed research is the source of the 7:59 minute response time goal for a paramedic ambulance.

Describe how Seattle/King County and Rochester, Minnesota, achieved significant cardiac arrest patient survival. Share more recent peer-reviewed analysis of patient outcomes after out-of-hospital paramedic intervention. Show how Detroit went from a cardiac arrest survival rate of zero (1 survivor a year) to an Utstein survival rate of 25% in 2024, including a 39.5% rate when the patient received bystander CPR or AED use.

Review the June 2024 American Ambulance Association presentation “EMS Transformed: Delivering High-Performance, High-Value EMS in Mecklenburg.”

Small Group Activity to report out at next LIVE session: What Should Be An Appropriate Ambulance Response Time for BengalCare Mobile Health? 

Required readings/viewings

Pitt County NC (2018) reenactment of 9-1-1 cardiac arrest call (4:37 minutes)

Eisenberg, M., et al. (1979) Paramedic Programs and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest. American Journal of Public Health 69(1) 30-38

First hour of the American Ambulance Association June 2024 presentation “EMS Transformed: Delivering High-Performance, High-Value EMS in Mecklenburg.”

Featured picture: Figure 3 from Eisenberg, M., et al. (1979) Paramedic Programs and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest. American Journal of Public Health 69(1) 30-38

This week’s asks:

1. Is there a breakdown by percentage, number of ambulances, or employees of EMS Service by agency (fire department, private for profit, municipal, community owned, hospital, or public utility model) newer than 2017?
2. Is there a post-pandemic report on the workload of interfacility and authorized medical transports?
3. Should there be more emphasis on the risk/reward when using air ambulances?
4. Follow-up: Still looking for a short (5-minute) video describing a private/commercial EMS service that does both 9-1-1 and interfacility transports

You can answer by emailing michaelward@isu.edu or posting a reply below.

Why no textbook?

I contacted the publishers of the textbooks used for EMS Systems, and EMS Management/Operations courses. The existing books have copyright dates between 2015 and 2017. Much of their content is aging out. The publishers and editors said that they have no plans to update their books. The market for EMS systems, management, and operations books is tiny, with few sales.

2: Structuring EMS Operations

Skip Kirkwood, Rob Luckritz, Art Groux, Robert Waddell, and Mike Touchstone provided a great “Corporate Models for Ambulance Service Delivery” and Matt Zavadsky clearly described “Levels of Ambulance Service” in the Management of Ambulance Services (2015) textbook.

The lecture describes the different clinical levels of EMS care, and reviews the National Association of EMT’s “What is EMS?” description. We provide a more in-depth description of the five versions of the Emergency Ambulance Service with examples:

• Fire-Based (single role provider: FDNY – dual role provider: Fairfax County)
• Private for profit (AMR, Falck, and Acadian)
• Municipal (non-fire) (Wake County, Boston, and Indianapolis)
• Community-owned non-profit (New Jersey, and Virginia Beach)
• Hospital operated (New Jersey, and Atlanta)
• Public Utility Model (Richmond)

Mention of the impact of rural hospital closings on EMS.

The Small Group Activity is to prepare a presentation at the start of next LIVE session that advocates for one of the following versions of ambulance service for River County:

• Contracting with a commercial ambulance service. (Green team)
• River County government establishes and runs the ambulance service. (Yellow Team) 
• Columbia City Fire Department establishes and runs a countywide emergency ambulance service. (Red Team)

Required reading/watching:

NAEMT (2024) What is EMS?

VB Rescue Foundation (2022) We are VB rescue [3:26] – Announcing the rebranding of the ten independent rescue squads and Virginia Beach EMS agency.

3: Scheduled Transport and Air Operations

Explain the workload of scheduled medical transportation. Describe the CMS description of medical and non-medical transportation for insurance reimbursement.

Review the Emergency Triage and Transport (ET3) initiative and why it was prematurely closed.

Provide detailed information on River County interfacility transports. As an Individual Assignment, have the student decide whether our RFP response should include providing the interfacility transports currently performed by the hospital-based ambulance service that is closing. The assignment requires an evaluation of data and revenue.

Describe air ambulance operations and the different agencies that provide the service. Review the 2021 Joint Position Statement and Resource Document of NAEMSP, ACEP, and AMPA in Prehospital Emergency Care.

Using the 2021 ASPE Issue Brief, discuss the cost, billing, and reimbursement of air ambulance services, including the “out-of-network” issue.

Mid Term exam question preview: Provided detailed information on recent history of medevac transports, including agency and geographic information, develop a Bengal Mobile Health Best Practice Operating Guide.

Required reading:

Blutinger, E., Ulintz, A. J., Chason, K. Gavin. N.(2025) 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐀 𝐂𝐌𝐒 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 Health Affairs. https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/learning-failure-cms-emergency-medical-services-model

Viitanen, A., Richardson, A., et. al. (2024) Breaking Point: Unraveling the Strain on EMS in Colorado and the Rising Role of Interfacility Transports

Lyng, J. W., Braithwaite, S., Abraham, H., Brent, C. M., Meurer, D. A., Torres, A., … Larrimore, A. (2021). Appropriate Air Medical Services Utilization and Recommendations for Integration of Air Medical Services Resources into the EMS System of Care: A Joint Position Statement and Resource Document of NAEMSP, ACEP, and AMPA. Prehospital Emergency Care, 25(6), 854–873. https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2021.1967534

Turrini, G., Ruhter, J., Chappel, A. R., & De Lew. N. (2021 Sept 10) Issue Brief: Air Ambulance Use and Surprise Billing. Office of Health Policy, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Reference: CMS (2025 January 14) EMERGENCY TRIAGE, TREAT, AND TRANSPORT (ET3) MODEL: Final Evaluation Report.

Feature picture: Ambulance bay of a Baltimore hospital with AMR, Baltimore County Fire, Baltimore City Fire, and Hatzalah community ambulances. https://www.maryland-traumanet.com/

ISU is using a different learning management system starting in Fall 2025. Concurrently, the university approved new course descriptions for EMS 3300: Foundations of EMS Systems and FSA/EMS 3335: Management of Emergency Medical Systems. I plan to include many NFPA Standard 1020 (2025) EMS Officer I and II Job Performance Requirements (JPRs) and meet the spirit of the National Fire Academy FESHE “Foundations of EMS Systems” (2019) model course outline.

Who Are The Students?

The ISU students are 60% traditional undergraduates, full-time students in their late teens and early 20s, completing their initial paramedic training. The rest of the students are early to mid-career West Coast practitioners finishing their online bachelor’s degree. Both 3300 and 3335 are upper-division undergraduate courses.

EMS 3300 Course Description

This course provides an overview of high-performance Emergency Medical Services systems by analyzing organizational structures, EMS staffing, and ambulance deployment practices. Topics include medical regulation, financing, fleet management, and workforce retention.

Course objectives:

• Describe the structure of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in the United States.
• Apply the benchmarking elements of a High-Performance EMS system.
• Examine clinically significant ambulance response time.
• Allocate ambulance resources based on dynamic deployment principles.
• Describe EMS funding sources.
• Analyze an existing ambulance fleet to develop a replacement schedule.
• Characterize the expanding role of paramedics in out-of-hospital care.

Lectures

Course Structure

ISU requires a LIVE online face-to-face Zoom session each week. Each course includes a simulation that allows the application of the learning objective through Small Group Activities that report out in a LIVE session, and individual graded Assignments. For EMS 3300, it is a response to a River County request for proposal, followed by establishing BengalCare Mobile Health services.

Each LIVE session consists of a Small Group Report out, a lecture, and an introduction to that week’s readings and assignments. We are not using a textbook with this update, so I need to increase the weekly content. The four quizzes cover the material presented in the lectures.

The mid-term and final exam are open-book short-answer responses to simulation scenarios that cover the learning objectives. There is a research paper requirement.

BengalCare Mobile Health versus Wombat Fire Department simulations.

EMS 3300 provides the “big picture” of EMS using a request for proposal and creation of a commercial 9-1-1 and interfacility ambulance service to apply the concepts – including scheduling and fleet issues. The student role plays as the BengalCare Operations Manager.

Both EMS and Fire Service students take FSA/EMS 3335, it is focused on the day-to-day management of an overworked fire-based EMS service, including Just Culture and first-line supervisor development. The student role plays as a Captain assigned to the EMS Chief’s office.

1: Introduction to EMS Systems

Brief description of urban and suburban/rural ambulance services before 1966. Ask students to read “Three Bells and a Jingle” an August 16, 1930 The New Yorker magazine interview with a Manhattan hospital ambulance surgeon.

Modern EMS starts in 1966 from three activities:

• Federal funding to establish a system to reduce motor vehicle traumatic fatalities
• Medical research on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival
• President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” funded a Black-owned ambulance service for the Hill and Oakland communities in Pittsburgh in 1967

Briefly describe all three activities. Point out that the Freedom House paramedics were the first caregivers to deliver ALS care on the streets without direct supervision by a physician or nurse (June 15, 1968). The initial EMT-Paramedic National Standard Curriculum came from the University of Pittsburgh/Dr. Nancy Caroline.

Have students read Edwards, M.L. (2019) Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service: The Origins of Emergency Medical Services and the Politics of Race and Health. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. (74)4, 440-466.

Finally, I had the students watch Hodgkins (2013) “Ambulance Service of Manchester – Episode 1 – Introduction” (2:29 minutes). This is a regional 9-1-1 and interfacility ambulance service that is similar to what BengalCare Mobile Health will be. It is no longer available. Is there a newer video that provides the same service overview?

You can post your responses in the comments section or email michaelward@isu.edu

Over half of the first lecture is spent discussing the mechanics of how to get an “A” in this course and walking them through the River County Request for Proposal. The first Small Group Exercise is for each group to read the RFP and generate three questions about the RFP before we submit a proposal.

Next week we will look at two later lectures.

Feature picture: Maury EMS at Maury County Regional Health Center. Columbia, TN. Devin Dickey picture.

This concept is used when discussing risk management, healthcare, and engineering. It is also a component in designing better systems under the Just Culture model. Reason points out that failure is an inevitable result of human systems—we are all fallible. Countermeasures are based on the idea that “we cannot change the human condition, but we can change the conditions under which humans work.” So, failure is seen as a system issue, not a person issue.

High-reliability organizations take this approach to failure awareness:

• Analyze every event, no matter how small, to implement system-wide changes
• Encourage and reward error reporting
• View near-misses as opportunities for improvement rather than proof of success
• Continuously learn from defects and develop failure-free processes

Two years before wildfires incineratedswaths of Los Angeles, the city’s fire chief, Kristin M. Crowley, identified “one significant area of weakness” in her department’s ability to contain wildfires. L.A. had no specialized wildland unit to respond to daily brush fires and scrape vegetation, dig ditches and do the other labor to ensure blazes did not spread or rekindle, she wrote on Jan. 5, 2023, asking for $7 million to assemble its own squad.

In a memo that has not been previously reported, she told city fire commissioners that L.A. relied almost entirely on overburdened “hand crews” from other jurisdictions to bring such muscle to its brush fire emergencies. Hand crews, the most elite of which are sometimes called “hotshots,” fight wildfires with chain saws, axes and shovels, setting containment lines and then sticking around to meticulously monitor smoldering fires, feeling by hand for heat and digging out live spots to make sure fires don’t relight.

High-reliability organizations resist oversimplification of explanations for successes and failures:

• Constantly question “why” and invite diverse opinions
• Avoid simplistic explanations for failures
• Recognize the complexity of their work and its potential to fail in unexpected ways

Forget “wildland-urban interface”

When catastrophic fires occur, experts often blame the so-called wildland-urban interface, the vulnerable region on the perimeter of cities and suburbs where an abundance of vegetation in rugged terrain is susceptible to burning.

Yet the fire disasters that we’re seeing today are less wildland fires than urban fires, wildfire expert Jack Cohen said. Shifting this understanding could lead to more effective prevention strategies.

“The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.”

The belief was that urban fires no longer exist, but they’ve come back. “It’s like watching polio return,” he said. “It’s happening repeatedly.”

While the Bel-Air fire in 1961, which destroyed 484 homes, and the Mandeville Canyon fire in 1978, which destroyed 230 homes, are often cited for the scale of their destruction, the 1991 Tunnel fire in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills marked the start of the modern era of urban fires, destroying 2,843 homes.

More recently, fires devastated Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 2016, the towns of Superior and Louisville in Colorado in 2021 and Lahaina, Hawaii, two years ago.(Curwen)

High-reliability organizations maintain high awareness of the state of their systems and processes:

• Focus on preserving constant awareness by leaders and staff of factors affecting the mission
• Proactively identify and prevent defects and harm
• Use real-time data and insights to prompt action, learning, and outcomes

Officials said that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed since about February for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117-million-gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades for nearly a year. (Hamilton)

High-reliability organizations cultivate resilience by:

• Prioritizing safety over other performance pressures
• Developing the ability to assess and respond to unexpected situations quickly
• Continuously learning from both successes and failures
• Investing in emergency training for unlikely but possible system failures

Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Fire Department officials were bracing for the kind of dangerous winds that could drive flames across hillsides and canyons and tear through neighborhoods from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades to the San Fernando Valley.

The National Weather Service had issued red flag warnings of doomsday gusts as fierce as 90 mph.  LAFD commanders ordered up at least 40 extra fire engines for stations closest to the areas where the fire hazards were greatest, including the Palisades, The Times has learned through interviews and internal department records.

Among the additional rigs were more than 20 that were pre-deployed to those stations and 18 “ready reserve” engines that supplement the regular firefighting force in such emergencies, the records and interviews show.

“We could not take any chances on this, because the risk was too great,” said former LAFD Assistant Chief Patrick Butler, now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, who led the agency’s preparations in 2011. (Tchekemedyian & Pringle) (Image is from staging for a 2010 brush fire – Mike Meadows)

High-reliability organizations value insights from those with the most pertinent knowledge, regardless of hierarchy:

• Empower frontline staff to make critical decisions
• Recognize that those closest to the work often have the greatest situational knowledge
• Ensure leaders know who possesses specialized expertise within the organization

Davis, Aaron C.; Boburg, Shawn; Sacks, Brianna; Hennessey-Fiske, Molly: & Lee, Joyce Sohyun. (2025 January 18) A key ‘weakness’ in L.A.’s wildfire strategy went unaddressed for years, Post probe shows. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/18/2023-memo-la-fire-chief-warned-significant-gap-wildfire-defense/

Curwen, Thomas (2025 Jan 11) Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/fire-experts-asses-los-angeles-blazes-amid-changing-times

Hamilton, Mark. (2025 January 10) State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/as-flames-raged-in-palisades-a-key-reservoir-nearby-was-offline

Tchekemedyian, Alene & Pringle, Paul. (2025 January 18) Amid dangerous winds in 2011, LAFD engines stood ready. That didn’t happen this time. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-18/amid-dangerous-winds-in-2011-lafd-engines-stood-ready-in-the-palisades-that-didnt-happen-this-time

Catastrophic reform drive changes to the fire prevention code: public assembly exits and interior finishes after the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston, smoke/heat control through compartmentalization/fire doors and automatic detection in schools after the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels school fire in Chicago, sprinklers required in highrise buildings after the 1980 MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas, and pyrotechnics restrictions, interior finishes and exit signage after the 2003 Station Nightclub fire in Providence, Rhode Island.

The window of opportunity for reform is influenced by:

• Discrediting existing institutions and elites
• Weakening opposition to change
• Creating urgent pressure for solutions
• Shifting public expectations and demands
• Making previously “impossible” options seem necessary

Los Angeles fire operations are no strangers to catastrophic reform. Fire Chief Keith Klinger went to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to report during the 1961 Bel Air-Brentwood wildfire. When the supervisors asked what should be done in the future, Chief Klinger immediately provided a comprehensive plan. Most plan elements had been proposed before and rejected by the board. Approvals were made at the height of the Bel Air incident.

In the early 2000s, residents and business owners in the San Fernando Valley felt that their city taxes were going downtown and not providing service to the valley. ValleyVOTE was an effort to secede from Los Angeles City. Inadequate rescue ambulance service was one of the issues, and some high-profile bad outcomes occurred.

Mayor James Hahn directed Fire Chief William Bamattre to “fix it.” This multi-year response increased the rescue ambulance fleet by 40% and put a paramedic asset (single-role paramedic or paramedic/firefighter) in every fire station.

… MAY BE A FIRE EQUIVALENT TO A CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE

That’s Stephen Pyne’s assessment. In 2019, fire historian Stephen Pyne and wildfire expert Jack Cohen spent three days touring Pacific Palisades and participating in the NFPA’s “Assessing Structure Ignition Potential from Wildfire” training with LAFD’s Defensible Space Program members and homeowners.  

Cohen makes these observations of the 2025 fire:

When you study the destruction in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, note what didn’t burn — unconsumed tree canopies adjacent to totally destroyed homes. The sequence of destruction is commonly assumed to occur in some kind of organized spreading flame front — a tsunami of super-heated gases — but it doesn’t happen that way.

In high-density development, scattered burning homes spread to their neighbors and so on. Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.

This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing. (Curwen 2025)

Will the replacement homes look like this house that used wildfire home hardening techniques and survived the Palisades fire?

HOW LARGE OF A FIREFIGHTER STANDING ARMY CAN THE COMMUNITY AFFORD?

When the National Weather Service issued its “Life-Threatening & Destructive Windstorm” alert on Monday, LAFD called in 90 additional firefighters to staff units and predeployed nine fire companies to vulnerable areas. Los Angeles County moved 30 extra engine companies into the area with 100 overtime firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service moved resources closer. It is the pre-planned response for a “Red Flag” alert. (Fuller, et al. 2025)

The Tuesday Santa Ana wind gusts of 85 to 100 miles an hour grounded firefighting airplanes and helicopters. The Palisades fire started at 10:35 am. Strike teams from Ventura and Orange Counties were mobilized. The high winds accelerated the fire spread in the high-density community described by Cohen as “… scattered burning homes spread to their neighbors and so on. Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.”

Many residents were forced to flee their homes. The fire was spreading faster than the traffic, resulting in cars abandoned on gridlocked roads – most without keys. The fire department used a dozer to clear the road for responding fire companies.

While all hands were engaged at the Palisades fire, a second major fire started in Eaton Canyon in the Altadena community at 6:18 pm.

Around 9 pm Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone called the California Office of Emergency Services and requested 50 strike teams: 250 engine companies staffed with 1,000 firefighters

At 9:26 pm. LAFD was calling back all available staff to fire stations and the maintenance shop.

By midnight, crews were losing water pressure from the hydrants. The water system was not designed to deliver 400% of its rated capacity. The power shutdown also affected the water pumps supplying Altadena.

By Sunday night, there were over 15,000 personnel, 2.500 California National Guard troops, 1,390 fire engines, 80 aircraft, 160 water tenders, and 170 dozers.

THE COST OF PREPARATiON

Redondo Beach Fire Chief Patrick Butler, a retired LAFD assistant chief, explained the issue of red-flag alert predeployments. It is expensive to call back staff and put additional units in service. Chief Butler points out that he was in 30 large-scale predeployments, with just three of those deployments handling significant work. From Chief Butler’s perspective, it is worth the cost.

What levels of firefighter staffing does the community want to pay for?

In July 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released a case study of the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County. At that time, the Camp Fire was the most deadly and destructive California wildland fire, killing 85, destroying 18,00 structures, and triggering the evacuation of 40,000 people.

As Los Angeles rebuilds, what type of community engineering (roads, building codes, landscaping, and fire breaks) and brush fire abatement will they implement to reduce the fire spread risk and the cost of fire department preparation?

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Curwen, Thomas (2025 January 11) Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts. Los Angeles Times. Accessed Jan 12, 2025 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/fire-experts-asses-los-angeles-blazes-amid-changing-times

Fuller, Thomas; Berzon, Alexandra; Browning, Kellen; and Hubler, Shawn (2025 Jan 11) L.A. Was Prepared for Serious Fires. But It Wasn’t Ready for Four. The New York Times. Accessed Jan 12, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/us/los-angeles-calfire-firefighters.html

Maranghides, Alexander; Link, Eric D.; Mell. William “Ruddy,”; Hawks, Steven, Brown, Chrisopher; and Walton, William D, (2023 July) NIST Technical Note 2252: A Case Study of the Camp Fire: Notification, Evacuation, Traffic, and Temporary Refuge Areas. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institutes of Standards and Technology. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.2252

Rodney Dyche noted that the EMS Media Log documented 26 ambulance thefts in 18 states in 2024. Six of those thefts resulted in significant crashes. Matt Zavadsky observed that: “For patient safety, community safety, this is something that is a zero-failure option, and if you fail to secure your vehicle, you can go work somewhere else. Period.” Rob Lawrence said: “We need to work hard to ensure that we don’t have that statistic in 2025, an ambulance stolen every 2 weeks.”

I reviewed the stolen ambulance articles posted on Company Commander.com and the Company Commander Facebook page since 2018.

Crimes of opportunity

The most frequent theft comes from an unattended ambulance parked at the emergency department or medical clinic. Some were idling, and all were unlocked. Nashville Fire had two idling ambulances stolen on the same day in October 2023.

Less frequent is the ambulance stolen from an incident scene, either by the patient or a third party. Sometimes, the caregivers and patient are still in the ambulance. That happened in Charlotte, NC, in April 2019, Phoenix in November 2023, New Orleans in October 2023, and in Atlanta in April 2024.

In a rare event, an ambulance is stolen from a station. In April 2022, Chicago Ambulance 66 was stolen from the Chinatown fire station and chased nearly 80 miles. In October 2022 Chicago Ambulance 71 was stolen from the fire station. In June 13, 2021, an ambulance was stolen from the Kunkel Ambulance garage in Utica, New York, and driven into Irondequoit Bay

Our featured image is the aftermath of a person entering the Detroit Fire Department’s Medic 8-HazMat 1-Chief 1/Fleet Maintenance facility in November 2019. The interloper drove Medic 8 through a bay door and later crashed exiting Interstate 75, during a police pursuit.

Here is a two-step approach to thwarting crimes of opportunity:

1. Establish and enforce a policy of taking the keys and locking up the ambulance when it is unattended. The Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services (CAAS) mandates a standard for accredited agencies to have a written policy/procedure to prevent vehicle theft. These agencies must provide copies of the policy/procedure detailing how vehicles are secured when unattended.

• Install an anti-theft device that auto-locks the transmission when the vehicle is placed in park. Tremco (https://tremcoemergencyproducts.com/ ) and Intermotive (https://intermotive.net/autogard/) offer CAAS-compliant anti-theft devices.

Violence Against Caregivers

EMS caregivers are attacked, and the assailant steals the ambulance. The most tragic example is the murder of FDNY EMT Yadira Arryo on March 16, 2017, when Jose Gonzalez drove over Arryo with the ambulance.

It happened in Prince George’s County, Maryland in January 2014 (killing a bystander when the ambulance crashed in a restaurant parking lot), Kanawha County, West Virginia, in November 2017, Detroit in April 2019, Washington County, Georgia, in January 2022; Houston, Texas in July 2021, Bronx, New York in August 2021, Montgomery County, Maryland in February 2022, Greer, South Carolina, in May 2022, Macon, Georgia in January, 2024, and Schenectady, New York in September 2024.

Since the pandemic, the number of reported attacks on EMS caregivers has increased. This will require a more comprehensive and expensive effort to prevent, react, and obtain justice when our caregivers are attacked and vehicles stolen.

Preventing the attack involves caregiver training and practice in:

• Situation Awareness
• De-escalation
• Operational and tactical protocols when encountering high-hazard situations

React to an attack using:

• Self-defense training
• Wearing appropriate personal protective gear
• Effective emergency communication (panic button)
• Use an automatic vehicle locator or global positioning service to track ambulances
• Robust public safety response when an attack is announced

Provide consequences for attacks to obtain justice

• Complete reporting of incidents
• Caregiver body cameras
• Effective legal prosecution of assailants
• Employee assistance services for attacked caregivers

Since 2016 the Seattle Fire Department has experienced increased attacks on caregivers when responding to medical calls, especially in the homeless encampments. Because of the high frequency of these calls, police are not always available. In June 2018 the department added a fire company to respond with an aid car (EMT ambulance) to every EMS call in Pioneer Square (1,200 EMS runs a year) and homeless encampments. The frequency of attacks against fire department members continued to increase. Between January and April 2023, there were more than 50 attacks.

There was a need to close a legal loophole to protect Seattle firefighters from interference the same way police officers are covered when performing their work activities. Under the legislation passed in May 2023, people can be arrested and charged if they intentionally physically interfere with firefighters, EMTs, and other fire responders who are actively responding to an emergency. It would also prevent people from intentionally refusing to leave the scene of an investigation of a crime while an investigation is in progress after being requested to do so.