Consultants are used to provide experienced analysis using specialized skills. We are also hired to do the unpleasant and difficult tasks when implementing change. The ambulance agency covered a portion of a county and had 9-1-1 ambulance contracts with seven towns. Another private ambulance service covered the rest of the county. Our client’s ambulance agency was in a financial crisis.

Unsustainable Town “Exclusive Ambulance” Contracts

In this state, the towns function as EMS gatekeepers. They can designate the town’s permitted EMT-level ambulance provider. The previous owner signed “exclusive ambulance” contracts with seven towns in the county that were covered by the other ambulance service. These contracts were restrictive. The exclusive ambulance could respond only to emergencies within town borders. The exclusive ambulance had to respond to every fire department call within the town.

The process to pull town ambulances for a mass casualty incident, or to help with the Friday afternoon surge of interfacility transports from the hospital, was difficult – we would not get a timely response from the town. The rent we paid to house the town’s exclusive ambulance in some volunteer fire department buildings was above the fair market rate I could get for space in an industrial park.

About half of the exclusive-town ambulances had a transport Unit Hour Utilization of 0.08, responding to 1 or 2 calls a day.¹ The combined UHU for the town ambulances was 0.125. The only revenue was from billing for transports. Servicing the seven exclusive town 9-1-1 contracts was creating a multi-million-dollar loss for the ambulance agency. Towns refused to amend the contracts, so the client authorized us to give notice that the contracts would be terminated in 120 days.

Working The Change Process

The first step was to meet with leadership in each town, explain the situation, and propose a solution. For the town described in the opening paragraph, we offered to continue using the town fire station as a post for the rudimentary system status management we were implementing for ambulance deployment.

For all seven towns, there would be no exclusive town ambulance contract. If they stayed with us, they could not select which crew would respond to their town. The towns have three choices: they could continue to allow our ambulance agency to respond to 9-1-1 calls; they could select the ambulance service covering their side of the county; or they could do something else.

Ambulances would no longer respond to every fire company dispatch, including activated fire alarms with no report of smoke or fire. An ambulance would respond to:

• Possible working fires with trapped occupants
• Confirmed working structure fires
• Transportation accidents with injuries
• Greater alarm events
• Any situation where the on-scene fire or police incident commander requested an ambulance.

The ambulance agency will track all EMS calls into the town and provide town leadership with a monthly report on ambulance response times. The ambulance agency will identify responses that exceeded the agreed-upon response time requirement and notify town leadership the next business day. We offered to provide town hall meetings to explain the changes.

A Very Angry Fire Chief

The chief who responded to that activated fire alarm at the start of this article was the angriest. He used reverse 9-1-1 to gather a town hall meeting in the high school basketball court. That town has a few assisted living and over-55 facilities. Those residents were in the front row. Behind them were the volunteer firefighters. John Smith and Mary Doe, senior ambulance agency employees who worked the day shift on the town’s dedicated ambulance, sat behind the firefighters.

I could not understand why the fire chief was so angry. The fire department is not the town’s EMS first responder. The fire company does not have an AED. The town police respond with lights and siren to every EMS 9-1-1 call. Patrol vehicles have an AED. They arrive within two to three minutes. In the past five years, all but one of the cardiac arrest resuscitations in the seven towns included a police-operated AED.

Diving Deeper

I later learned that the angry volunteer fire chief documented fire company/fire chief response to fire incidents using the town ambulance response time. The two- to 10-minute fire company/fire chief response times reported to the mayor and town council were based on ambulance response times; the actual fire company/fire chief response time was much longer. This had been going on for a while.

The most senior ambulance agency employee, Joe Smith, retired when the exclusive ambulance contract ended. Smith started a dozen years ago with the ambulance agency assigned to this town. He did not work at any other ambulance assignment. Smith became a town volunteer firefighter. The fire chief justified using the ambulance response time to the mayor because Smith was a VFD member.

Mary Doe, his partner, started on the town ambulance seven years ago. She moved to a weekday surge unit but left the agency within three months. The surge ambulance did 4 to 8 transports in 12 hours, while the town ambulance averaged 0.7 transports in 24 hours.

Six towns stayed with our ambulance agency. Moving from many slow, exclusive town ambulances to regional coverage for the towns with a basic system status management deployment raised Unit Hour Utilization from 0.125 to 0.30. The ambulance response times to the towns increased by an average of 1.2 minutes. The previous owner was “planting his flag” with these ambulance contracts in towns on the other side of the county, hoping to push out the other ambulance service. The town contract with the angry fire chief was losing almost half a million dollars a year.

____________________________________

¹ Unit Hour Utilization is a High-Performance EMS metric calculating the time-on-task workload of a staffed ambulance per hour.

Elements, identifiers, and sequence of events may be altered in “war stories” to protect the innocent or work better as an example.

Featured picture: Action Ambulance. (2026, February 10). Our Ossipee Valley crew has been busy at work. Thank you to everyone who has helped out! [Instagram] https://www.instagram.com/p/DUmw9cFjqUt/

P.S.: Here is a different view on the issue of EMS-only staff doing firefighting tasks

Davis, J. (2026, August 21). Somerset EMS, fire chiefs revive plan to cooperate on fire calls: ‘We don’t want to start nothing else,’ commission president says. The Baltimore Sun. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2026/08/21/somerset-county-ems-volunteer-fire-calls-policy/

Fire officials say the county’s volunteer firefighters are aging, and new members have been harder to find. County EMS crews are often first to fire scenes, yet current policy can leave them standing by while shorthanded fire companies get to work.

Somerset took over county EMS late last year, while volunteer fire companies remained independent. Some fear the county eventually wants to absorb them, despite repeated denials by commissioners.

County officials said no one is asking an ambulance crew to put on a mask and charge into a burning building. The request is simpler: If a hose needs pulling, a hydrant needs connecting or tools need carrying, don’t make trained hands stand by and watch.

With that, Somerset County officials and volunteer fire chiefs are developing a policy allowing county EMS crews to provide that kind of assistance, reviving a plan that collapsed amid fears of a county-run fire department.

While working as an Assistant Professor at The George Washington University, I followed the efforts of Los Angeles and Baltimore fire departments as they addressed the challenge of adding ambulances to their overworked systems (2000 – 2007). One element was the impact of authorized but unfilled full-time positions.

In looking at other fire departments, we observed that when the percentage of authorized career positions that are unstaffed exceeds 12%, the number of firefighters or single-role paramedics willing to work the overtime to fill those vacancies plummets. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some fire departments are wrestling with this issue today.

The Impact of Excessive Overtime

John Hicks, writing in The Firemen’s Grapevine, articulated the reality for LAFD employees:

You’re working another 72-hour shift. It’s okay, you’re young. You have a girlfriend/boyfriend, but it is just the beginning of the relationship. You recently bought your first condo, but the payment is low, and your health is good. A little time passes. You are still doing those 72-hour shifts, with an occasional 96-hour now thrown in. Your significant other is now wearing a wedding ring, and your first born is asking you if he or she is going to have a brother or sister soon. The condo was traded for a three-bedroom home in suburbia USA along with the cheaper mortgage. Overtime is now more of a necessity than a luxury.

Due to the abundance of overtime, the days of having a “C” shift job have all but disappeared for LAFD members. Not only has this hurt the department by limiting the talents learned by the experience gained by working other types of job, such as construction, electrical, and plumbing related careers, it means that overtime seems to be the sole means for most to earn a little extra money. (2022)

The Challenge of Fire Department Position Management

There has been a long dance over what staffing a fire department needs to meet its operational requirements. Jurisdiction leadership is resistant to creating new full-time positions, as they require 137% funding to cover salary, workers’ compensation, annual/sick leave, training, personal protective gear, and other human resource expenditures.

The jurisdictional administrators and elected leaders struggle with the concept of having a workforce where there are more full-time equivalents (FTEs) on duty than the minimum required seats to fill. As Fitch and Associates LLC partner Steven Knight, Ph.D., points out:

Using my old department as an example, the staffing was determined on a legacy basis and that legacy pre-dated most, if not all, of the institutional knowledge. For example, the department staffed five personnel for every seat on an engine, four for every seat on a truck company, and two for every seat on a rescue. While the daily minimum staffing was consistently applied, it had to overcome the inconsistency in staffing for each position. In fairness, these legacy-staffing strategies may have been compromises over the years and budget cycles, but to clearly articulate the strategy at a future moment in time proves difficult. (2019)

Looking At LAFD

A 2015 Evergreen Data Library audit of overtime led the Los Angeles City Council to approve hiring 48 additional firefighters. At that time, “420 LAFD employees earned more than $100,000 in overtime, and 19 earned more than $200,000. One Fire Captain made $311,316 in overtime on top of a $120,829 salary, for a staggering total of $448,594 in overtime pay. … a Commander at the LAFD informed the Controller’s office that the employee with $311,316 in overtime did obey all policies and procedures regarding overtime.” Evergreen noted that “Los Angeles uses what is called a ‘constant staffing’ model, which intentionally keeps firefighter positions open and uses overtime to make up for the missing employees. … LAFD is understaffed to the brink of collapse.”

Those 48 additional firefighter positions in 2015 did not end the overtime issue.

An audit of the Fiscal Year 2019 expenditures (July 2018 – June 2019) showed that “Eighteen employees of the Los Angeles Fire Department earned more than $200,000 in overtime pay last fiscal year, with one firefighter making $360,010 in overtime.” The 2019 audit also observed that “More than 90% of sworn police and fire employees last fiscal year received overtime, earning an average of $27,737, while 40% of the city’s general employees, defined as other sworn and civilian workers, received such pay. That group earned an average of $7,528” (Smith, 2019)

In 2022, The Center Square reported, “A captain in the department made $434,394 in overtime in 2021, pushing their gross pay to $598,532 to become the highest-paid employee in the city that year. Another fire captain made $420,055 in overtime, pushing that person’s gross pay to $593,314 in 2021. That person was the second-highest paid employee in the city, according to city payroll records. A firefighter with a base salary of $129,638 made $411,606 in overtime, making that firefighter’s total compensation $554,056. There were 86 employees in the fire department who made $400,000 or more in 2021. However, the highest ranking employee was not among those. The fire chief made $338,624, or nearly $250,000 less than the fire captain.” (Gantert et al., 2022)

The 2021 overtime increases in Los Angeles are linked to multiple-day wildfire campaign operations and the interrupted hiring cycle during the COVID pandemic. Emergency workers are dealing with the lingering effects of a massive increase in disease exposure (opioid overdoses and COVID) and a physically challenging workload. The 2023 Standards of Cover Analysis performed by CityGate Associates LLC made this observation: “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”(Citygate, 2023, p. 6).

ICMA and Center for Public Safety Excellence: 21st Century Fire & Emergency Services

The ICMA and Center for Public Safety Excellence white paper on 21st Century Fire and Emergency Services identified two themes:

• The past strategies of deferring conclusive action on critical issues with short-term solutions and leaving them for the next set of leadership are not a sustainable strategy for the future. To continue to do so will worsen the eventual correction(s) that will have to be made.
• We must begin recruiting talent with the mindset, skill sets, and resolve to help build a core organizational culture that can adapt and respond to rapid changes and that is not vested in a 20th-century fire service paradigm or antiquated local government bureaucracy. (2020)

This white paper may serve as a starting point to change the conversation with jurisdictional leaders and elected officials. We need to develop a new narrative that promotes appropriate organizational staffing to meet the expanded and complex roles that a fire department performs today.

The Impact of Overcommitting Existing Staff

Robert Peterson’s Executive Fire Officer capstone research paper examined employee perceptions of hours worked within the Corona (California) Fire Department (CFD). A ten-year retrospective analysis found overtime was only slightly cheaper than hiring, while daily vacancy levels were high enough to justify additional positions outright and identified fatigue-driven injury risk as the hidden cost. Corona Fire Department documented a 93% increase in injury-related time off alongside a 119% increase in forced hire/mandatory overtime over ten years (2024, p. 6). The vacancy is not eliminated; it is converted into overtime liability, workers’ compensation exposure, and attrition.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarded a five-year contract to the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO) to understand the science of sleep health and apply these principles to develop fatigue risk management guidelines. One of the products is the Implementation Guidebook: 2018 Fatigue Management Guidelines for Emergency Medical Services that recommends EMS personnel work shifts shorter than 24 hours (Patterson & Robinson, 2018, p. 7).

Just before 5:20 a.m. Sunday, April 2, 2023, as BLS 16 responded to a call, it slammed into a power pole, a crosswalk sign, and a wall.  The crew, in the 69th hour of a 72 hour shift, suffered minor injuries.

“Right now, we still have employees who are still dealing with sleep deprivation and knowing that this has been going on for over a year and didn’t come up with concrete solutions to solve it,” said Pritchard.

President Rex Pritchard, Long Beach Firefighters Association Local 372, said he and leaders of the International Association of Machinists Local 1930 have been urging the department to address what they say are extreme call volume and fatigue issues for over a year but haven’t seen any changes.

“What is very common in this department is to work 72-hour shifts,” said Pritchard. “You’re lucky if you get, in that 72 hours, four to six hours of rest.” (CBS LA Staff, 2023)

Changing The Conversation

The fire service has argued about staffing in the same terms for decades: seats, minimums, and the price of one more position. Los Angeles added 48 firefighters in 2015 and, by 2021, had 86 fire department employees earning more than $400,000, with a captain out-earning the fire chief by nearly $250,000. Incremental hiring against a structurally under-authorized workforce does not close the gap; it only changes who is exhausted.

The ICMA and Center for Public Safety Excellence white paper offers a more useful frame, calling for recruitment of talent with “the mindset, skill sets, and resolve to help build a core organizational culture that can adapt and respond to rapid changes” rather than one “vested in a 20th-century fire service paradigm or antiquated local government bureaucracy.” That reframing matters because the fire department is no longer staffed for the mission it actually performs. It is an all-hazards, high-acuity, medically dominant enterprise being resourced by a formula built for structural firefighting.

The new narrative should describe risk exposure, service reliability, and total labor cost rather than in seats and minimums. It should treat fatigue management as a standard of care. And it should be honest that the choice was never between spending and not spending. The choice was between spending deliberately on positions and spending involuntarily on the consequences of leaving them empty. The departments that make that case successfully will be the ones able to staff without force hires in the future.

References

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

CityGate. (2023). Los Angeles Fire Department Standards of Cover Analysis. Volume 1 of 3: Technical Report. CityGate Associates LLC.

Evergreen Data Library (2015) Los Angeles – Payroll & Overtime Analysis. https://evergreen.data.socrata.com/stories/s/Los-Angeles-Payroll-Overtime-Analysis/ijhv-thke/

Fox, S. (1999 Dec 26). Proposal Targets Paramedic Shortage. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-26-me-47674-story.html

Gantert, T., Apel, E., & Rowland, B. (2022, July 18). Los Angeles’ $600,000 fire captain and 86 firefighters made more than $400,000 in 2021. The Center Square. https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/los-angeles-600-000-fire-captain-and-86-firefighters-made-more-than-400-000-in/article_ca6b4cbc-06a8-11ed-9919-679807fe6e61.html

Hicks, J. (2022, April 1) Overtime – Too much of a good thing? The Fireman’s Grapevine. Los Angeles Firemen’s Relief Association. https://www.lafra.org/overtime-too-much-of-a-good-thing/

ICMA & CPSA (2020) 21st Century Fire and Emergency Services. https://www.cpse.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/21st-Century-Fire-and-Emergency-Services-White-Paper-Final-07.15.20.pdf

Knight, S. (2019, March 12). Full time, part time, overtime: How to fill fire department vacancies. FireRescue1.com. https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-chief/articles/full-time-part-time-overtime-how-to-fill-fire-department-vacancies-uRC8dscpvRkfgRhN/

Patterson, P. D., & Robinson, K. (2018, October). Implementation Guidebook: 2018 Fatigue Management Guidelines for Emergency Medical Services. National Association of State EMS Officials. https://s3.amazonaws.com/ClubExpressClubFiles/157064/documents/Fatigue_in_EMS_Implementation_Guidebook_1551393887.pdf

Peterson, R. (2024, April). Employee Perceptions of Hours Worked in the Corona Fire Department. [Capstone research project, National Fire Academy]. U.S. Fire Administration. https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/pdf/efop/Robert-Peterson-Employee-Perceptions-of-Hours-Worked-in-the-Corona.pdf

Smith, D. (2019, Nov 6) L.A. firefighter banked $360,010 in overtime pay in one year, city audit finds. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-06/lapd-lafd-audit-overtime-city-controller

Williams, E. (2007 Aug 29). Paramedic Coded Assign Hire to End Sept 9. Battalion 14 News & Information (dormant rss feed).

The EMS Systems course has been taught at three universities. I have been through four textbooks, five learning management systems, and many initiatives to better engage students. The Fall 2026 version of the course for Idaho State University barely resembles the original course I developed for The George Washington University.

No Textbook

When the National Fire Academy issued the Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) EMS Model curriculum, textbook publishers responded as they did with the earlier Fire Science curricula, providing one or two textbooks for every course. There were 16 textbooks covering the FESHE EMS curriculum. Unfortunately, the market for EMS textbooks is tiny. By Spring 2023, there were three FESHE EMS textbooks with 2015 to 2017 copyright dates. About 50% of their content was obsolete. The publishers said that they were not planning to update or replace these textbooks. EMS 3300 went textbook-free in Fall 2024.

Working Backward To Develop Content

Rewriting the course without a textbook required looking backward. What content would satisfy the course objectives (measurable outcomes of the student competency) and stay within the course description and the curriculum goals? Peer-reviewed research, industry or special interest group white papers, trade journal articles, and webinars provide current information in place of the textbook. Linking them together for an online course meant that the lectures became longer and many of the slides became wordier. Last summer, I crowdsourced EMS 3300 on LinkedIn to update course content.

Using Simulation To Demonstrate Student Competencies

EMS 3300 provides the “big picture” of EMS by creating a commercial 9-1-1 and interfacility ambulance service to demonstrate course competencies, including staff scheduling and fleet replacement. We start by evaluating a Request for Proposal to replace a hospital-based ambulance service supplemented by community volunteer ambulances with a single ambulance service system serving a two-county suburban-rural jurisdiction. Each week, the students apply the concepts or processes covered in the lecture to the fictional River County EMS through an individual assignment, small group exercise, or a graded problem-solving assessment.

The Only Constant is Change

I thought that last summer’s crowdsourcing provided a nice bolus of updated content for the textbook-free course. This summer I planned to coast with a few course tweaks, like finding a new state contract showing the cost of purchasing or remounting an ambulance.

Yikes, I was wrong. Five of the 14 lectures needed major rewrites. The introduction to the 2026 AIMHI High Performance / High Value EMS Benchmark Survey describes the current EMS industry environment:

Emergency Medical Services is undergoing one of the most significant periods of transformation in its history. Workforce shortages, rising operating costs, reimbursement challenges, increasing clinical complexity, and growing expectations for patient-centered care are fundamentally changing how EMS systems are designed, managed, and evaluated. At the same time, EMS has expanded well beyond its traditional role as a transportation service, becoming an essential component of the healthcare continuum, public health infrastructure, and community resilience. (AIMHI, 2026, p. 1)

AIMHI’s benchmark report release inspired this post. On July 10th, I completed my course update for EMS 3300 and loaded the lectures, PowerPoints, and the peer-reviewed journal articles, industry white papers, trade journal articles, and links to webinars onto the ISU learning management system. The AIMHI benchmark was issued July 30th. Had to update two lectures, one assignment, one mid-term exam problem, and add the AIMHI 2026 benchmark survey document as required reading.

Oh, and while doing the final edit of this article, I watched a great interview of Hilary Gates and Bob Davis, 6 Minutes to Live: Why Your ZIP Code Can Determine Cardiac Arrest Survival on Derek Hanley’s The DOHP Signal. https://youtu.be/C4e4edSN5t0

We are living in interesting times.

AIMHI (2026) 2026 AIMHI High Performance / High Value EMS Benchmark Survey: Organizational, Operational, Clinical and Financial Benchmarks from North America’s Leading EMS Systems. Academy of International Mobile Healthcare Integration. https://aimhi.mobi/benchmarking-resources/

What Do Retired Firefighters Dream About?

A recently retired firefighter posted that question on a private social media account comprised of other retired members from the same department. Those who responded mentioned dreaming of being back in the fire station, interacting with the crew, and recalling the mundane non-emergency aspects of the job.

In my back-on-the-job dreams, a feeling returned that I was an integral part of something bigger, something important in a group that makes a difference in the community. I felt calm, competent, and connected. A feeling that has not shown up in any of my endeavors after retiring from the fire department.

Robert McCarl spent 18 months embedded with the Washington, District of Columbia, Fire Department (1978-1979) to conduct an ethnographic study of urban firefighters. An ethnographic study is an immersive, qualitative research method where a researcher embeds themselves into a specific community or social group to understand their culture, behaviors, and everyday practices from the participants’ own perspectives. McCarl explained his presence to firefighters this way, “I was hired by the union to document how information is passed from one guy to the next, say from an experienced man to a rookie” (McCarl, 1985, p. 21).

McCarl’s interviews with firefighters reinforce the concept of the fire department as a second family:

It’s hard to describe the closeness you felt with the guys in the fire house. I don’t think my wife has ever really understood it. I just used to love coming to work – especially on those long Saturdays when we’d have a big roast or ham or something and sit around and talk or play cards. … It’s a group of men with unique brotherhood feeling – they’ll never let you down (McCarl, 1985, p. 97)

A theme that will be repeated in the EMS section, “After the first few months in the house and on the fireground, however, this formal education (recruit school) has been shaped by the informal culture of the company and the officer, and the rookie has begun to reflect the attitude and techniques of those he has chosen as a model” (McCarl, 1985, p. 39).

Where’s My Gear?

I was surprised to find I was not the only retiree searching for my gear (fire coat, bunker pants/boots, helmet, portable radio) while dreaming of firehouse life. Probably something hard-wired from the recruit school/rookie year.

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Is Different

Ethnographic studies of U.S. 9-1-1 ambulance service focused on private providers (Prener, 2022; Seim, 2020; Mannon, 1992; Metz, 1982). In these organizations, EMS caregivers arrive already credentialed as EMTs or paramedics. New employees receive orientation and, usually, a skills checkoff. Then they are sent out to work as part of a two-caregiver team.

Supervision may be remote and infrequent. They may spend a lot of their time between responses parked at an intersection or parking lot. This is a very different team environment from that of a fire station, with a larger fire suppression crew that includes a supervisor and a home base with a kitchen, bathrooms, bunkrooms, and dayroom to relax and recover. Caregiver annual turnover for United States EMS staff in 2022 is 25-30% (Zarei et al., 2026).

In The Ordinary Hours, James Weber uses the business fable storytelling technique to illustrate the EMS caregiver retention problem at a fictional four-station EMS 9-1-1 agency. The descriptions are vivid and valid. Following the retention improvement journey from Station 4 to the challenging Station 7 – with a 71% turnover in one year – is engaging.

Weber shows that EMS has 90 days to develop a new hire. It is a three-phase process.

• Month 1 is stabilization: provide psychological safety and agency orientation, using one consistent person as a mentor.
• Month 2 is to deepen agency integration and skill building,
• Month 3 is caregiver autonomy and organizational commitment, where the new hire’s mentor evolves into one of many resources the new hire has within the agency.

If the new hire is not anchored to the EMS agency by the 90th day, they will decide to leave.

References

Country Callbacks. (2026, June) Country Roads Went Viral at the FIFA World Cup – Here’s Why Soccer Fans are Obsessed! [YouTube] https://youtu.be/1-vSER43-GY

Mannon, J. M. (1992). Emergency encounters: EMTs and their work. Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Metz, D. L. (1982). Running Hot: Structure and Stress in Ambulance Work. Cambridge, MA: Abt Books. https://doi.org/10.1525/maq.1983.14.3.02a00210

McCarl, R. (1985) The District of Columbia Fire Fighters’ Project: A Case Study in Occupational Folklife: Smithsonian Folklife Studies, Number 4. Smithsonian Institution Press. https://repository.si.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/10e84cae-cc7f-4b6b-aea8-f02c2ad9208a/content

Prener, C. (2022). Medicine at the margins: EMS workers in urban America. Fordham University Press. https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9781531501075.001.0001

Reliable Source (2013, October 4) Bill Danoff on how ‘Country Roads’ became a German Oktoberfest hit. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2013/10/04/bill-danoff-on-how-country-roads-became-a-german-oktoberfest-hit/

Seim, J. (2020). Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Human Suffering. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Weber, J. (2026) The Ordinary Hours: Why Your Best People Leave – And The Small Things That Make Them Stay. Oak Street Press. https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Hours-People-Leave-Things-ebook/dp/B0FQTNKY2Y/ref=sr_1_2

Zarei, E., Safari, M., Zamani, Z., & Kakemam, E. (2026). Turnover intention and its predictors among Emergency Medical Services (EMS) professionals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-026-01567-8

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more fire departments have added 9-1-1 emergency ambulance services. Some have been successful bidders on ambulance service contracts, replacing commercial ambulance providers like AMR and Falck. Others have resulted from a political decision by the authority having jurisdiction. Finally, some are functioning as the municipal safety net after a private or community volunteer ambulance service ceases to provide service.

Many of these transitions promise lower costs to the municipality. Once the ambulance service starts, the reality is that the fire department or municipality used unrealistic or naive financial analysis. This article provides a background and recommendations for chief fire executives.

A $3.65B Bolus of Federal and Robert Wood Johnson Funding to Start EMS

The current United States EMS system started in 1966, with Congress reacting to the National Academy of Sciences white paper on Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society. Congress included Emergency Medical Services (EMS) as a component of the National Highway Safety Act of 1966. The Federal Department of Health Education and Welfare’s (DHEW) five demonstration projects, the 1973 EMS Systems Act, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poured $3.65 billion (in 2026 dollars) into 349 EMS systems (Shah, 2006; Bass, 2015; Sadler & Sadler, 2022).

DHEW funded demonstration projects in Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio. The University of Oklahoma’s Center for Economic and Management Research (CEMR – economists and behavioral scientists) got the assignment in 1975 to study the performance of the DHEW EMS demonstration projects. 

The Jacksonville (Florida) Fire Department got the highest assessment. They took over the emergency ambulance service from funeral homes in 1967 and used DHEW money to train and equip firefighters to better handle cardiac-related calls. Jack Stout, director for the Arkansas EMS demonstration project, recalled:

AIl five of the demonstration project directors were to speak, and I was scheduled (set up) to follow Jacksonville, Florida’s Captain John Waters. When Captain Waters finished, the audience of about 800 folks was rolling in the aisles from his truly professional comic delivery. Waters’ famous dual slide show presentation had convinced even me that death was a thing of the past in ]acksonville. Watching Captain Waters, I felt sorry for other department heads who had to compete with him for a share of the ]acksonville city budget (Stout, 1985, p. 55).

Birth of High-Performance EMS and the Public Utility Model

Jack Stout moved from the Arkansas EMS project to be a researcher at CEMR. An economist, Stout believed that under the right conditions private sector ambulance services could provide better services than the Jacksonville Fire Department’s “socialized medicine” (Stout, 1985, p. 55).  This evolved into the High-Performance EMS (HPEMS) concept where the ambulance service was self-sustaining based on revenues and effective use of resources. There were nine “Public Utility Model” (PUM) high-performance EMS agencies in the 1980s. Many of the metrics we use today, like Unit Hour Utilization, came from HPEMS.

A key aspect of HPEMS is that every ambulance transport – 9-1-1, critical care, interfacility, and facility-to-home is provided by the HPEMS ambulance service (Overton & Stout, 2002). When I attended meetings of the Virginia State EMS Advisory Board, I heard complaints from volunteer rescue squads outside the City of Richmond that were not allowed to transport patients from city hospitals to their homes. The ordinance that established the Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA), a public utility model, required that all patients transported on an ambulance stretcher in the city be moved by RAA.

When the Kansas City Fire Department took over ambulance duties from the Municipal Ambulance Services Trust (MAST) in 2010 (Mansur et al., 2009), and the Fort Worth, Texas, Fire Department replaced MedStar Mobile Health in 2025 (Wolf, 2024), the fire departments did not continue to provide interfacility transports. This dismantling of the Public Utility Model range of services affects the fire department EMS budget, as revenues from interfacility transports subsidized the cost of 9-1-1 responses in the PUM system.

A Look At Billing Revenues

The FY 2027 EMSA Strategy & Budget Book from the Emergency Medical Services Authority – a public utility model serving Tulsa and Oklahoma City – includes an EMSA Reimbursement Reality section. “The chart below underscores the vast difference between projected FY2027 billed charges and net revenue expected to be collected from the federal government Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – two payors that account for nearly 70% of EMSA’s payor mix.” (EMSA, 2026, p. 4)

Breaking The Reimbursement Information Silo

While working as an assistant professor at The George Washington University, I did a deep dive into non-fire EMS. I remained active as an IAFC EMS Section member and engaged in committee work. Our tribal roots were clear, as it seemed that if the American Ambulance Association (AAA) advocated for a federal policy change, the fire service organizations would oppose it. I felt a bit like a stranger in a strange land when attending the AAA conference as an academic. Information was rarely shared between these tribes.

The first Fitch & Associates Pinnacle Conference in 2005 was an eye-opener. Dr. Jay Fitch exclaimed, “It reminds me of the Fourth Party!” The Fourth Party was an organization created by Jack Stout to provide training and advocacy for HPEMS. As with the AAA conference, some of the keynote speakers and many of the topics found at Pinnacle were not covered in fire conferences, including IAFC’s Fire-Rescue Med (FRM).

A lot has happened since 2005 …

Inadequate Ambulance Service Reimbursement

Until the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 directed CMS to build the Ground Ambulance Data Collection System (GADCS), the 2002 Medicare national ambulance fee schedule was established without actual cost data. Since 2004, Congress has added temporary add-ons to the fee schedule that have to be repeatedly reauthorized.

The Finance Committee of the National EMS Advisory Council, a nationally recognized council of EMS representatives and consumers to provide advice and recommendations regarding EMS to the federal government, issued a report on EMS Funding and Reimbursement in 2016. Their first conclusion:

The systematic cost of providing emergency ambulance services in the US exceeds currently available revenue. This mismatch can be resolved with one of two actions: 1) increase reimbursement or subsidies or 2) decrease costs. With fixed costs required to provide a clinically acceptable level of service, decreasing dollars spent on will result in a direct negative impact on the quality of care provided. The NEMSAC has previously recommended to FICEMS that it increase reimbursement for ambulance services utilizing the existing payment structure (NEMSAC Finance Committee Final Report, 2009). In the current economic climate, that recommendation is unlikely to be realized. (NEMSAC, 2016, p. 15)

Analyzing the Ground Ambulance Data Collection System (GADCS) Results

The first results of the GADCS surveys were published last year. Matt Zavadsky and the team from Page Wolfberg & Wirth LLC Advisory Group (PWW|AG) have been analyzing the data and interacting with the RAND Health Care’s lead author. The 2025 article Quantifying the gap between expenses and revenue for EMS services, posted on ems1.com, is the start of a continuing series analyzing the data, how the RAND author interprets it, and the implications for EMS operations. In PWW|AG’s January 21, 2025 webinar, “What We Learned From the First CMS Ambulance Cost Report,” they used CMS data to create Table X, which shows the stunning average revenue shortfall for all ambulance suppliers.

You can view this webinar and additional information on EMS reimbursement by enrolling in the PWW|AG Resource Hub, which includes a monthly EMS Financial Index. For policy issues, they have PWW|AG Industry Updates.

The post-pandemic 21% Solution that Unraveled Public Utility Models

Private-sector ambulance services poorly paid EMS caregivers before the pandemic. California is the only state to create an industry profile of the EMS caregiver workforce. The UCLA Labor Center identified “Private-sector EMTs and paramedics earned 39 percent less than their public-sector counterparts. Even when controlling for age, gender, geography, education, and race and ethnicity, public-sector wages were still much higher than private-sector wages” (Jacobs et al., 2017, p. 4). California public sector EMS employers are fire departments.

Non-fire municipal and commercial 9-1-1 paramedic ambulance services significantly raised salaries to fill EMS caregiver positions left vacant after the COVID-19 pandemic. Wake County EMS in North Carolina, a non-fire municipality, increased caregiver pay by 21% for existing and future caregivers to fill open paramedic positions and slow attrition. The 70-some open paramedic positions represent an 18% vacancy rate (Melmed, 2022). The Richmond Ambulance Authority increased caregiver salaries by 23%, raising the hourly rate by $4. Its employee turnover rate decreased from 43% to 17% (RAA, 2025, p. 13).

Similar pay raises were implemented at MedStar Mobile Health in Fort Worth, Texas; the Emergency Medical Services Authority in Tulsa and Oklahoma City; and the Three Rivers Ambulance Authority in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The increased salaries and the post-pandemic exponential jump in ambulance, medical equipment, and supplies costs placed all of these systems into financial peril. Stout’s High-Performance EMS process is financially unsustainable in the current healthcare environment.

Recommendations for the Chief Fire Executive

1) Identify and utilize a EMS reimbursement expert on your state’s regulations and practice

Medicine is a state-regulated activity. CMS regulations for reimbursement are complex. Especially now, with the dramatic DOGE initiatives and a chaotic federal government change process, you could benefit from having access to an insurance reimbursement expert in ambulance billing for your state.

2) Establish an effective audit process for submitting reimbursement claims

Some metro-sized fire departments have encountered significant potential federal fraud penalties for inaccurate or improper claim submissions. The municipal liability does not go away if you employ a vendor or subcontractor to process the claims.

3) Clearly show the expenses in adding an ambulance service

Some fire departments lump all of the operational expenses into a single budget category – if it has a siren and emergency lights, it goes in this bucket. Either internally or publicly, the municipality should be able to identify the direct expenses and the increase in existing services (911 center, apparatus shop, warehouse, training, etc.) associated with implementing a new ambulance service.

4) Consider EMS Services Going Beyond a Lights-and-Siren Rush to a Critical Patient

We will explore this in a later article, but only about six to seven percent of the patients treated and transported are clinically improved through paramedic street medicine. For those in cardiac arrest, stroke, sepsis, cardiovascular failure, allergic reaction, multi-system trauma, asthma attack, or acute metabolic crisis, we are lifesavers.

A recent study using 9.5 million EMS encounters in the 2024 ESO data revealed that:

Three percent of patients accounted for 16% of all encounters. Patients with very-high utilization were disproportionately covered by Medicaid, resided in socioeconomically vulnerable communities, and more commonly presented with chronic conditions. Despite higher transport rates, they were 40% less likely to be admitted than single encounter patients. The median time between encounters was 10 days for very-high utilizers (Fernandez et al., 2026).

Many of our 9-1-1 EMS calls are for situations never imagined in 1966. An ESO Solutions review of a little over ten million fire company responses (pumpers, ladder trucks, and heavy rescues) in 2025 shows that 66% are to EMS calls. Is this the best use of this resource?

References

Bass, R. (2015). History of EMS. In D. C. Cone (Ed.), Emergency Medical Services: Clinical Practice and System Oversight (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1-16). John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. 

Crowe, R. P., Fernandez, A. R., Treichel, A., Gardner, B., & Myers, B. (2026). Fire Service Index: Insights and Best Practices for Fire Departments (8^th edition) [White Paper]. ESO Solutions. https://www.eso.com/fire-service-index/

EMSA (2026) FY 2027 EMSA Strategy & Budget Book. Emergency Medical Services Authority. https://emsaok.gov/fiscal-strategy-and-budget/

Espinoza, M. (2026, July 26). Sonoma County Fire District, the regions largest ambulance service provider, seeks 16.36% rate increase. The Press Democrat. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/07/18/sonoma-county-fire-district-regions-largest-ambulance-service-provider-seeks-16-36-rate-increase/

Finance Committee. (2016 ). EMS Funding and Reimbursement: FINAL. National EMS Advisory Council. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation.

Fernandez, A. R., Myers, J., Bourn, S. S., Crowe, R. P., Preusser, E. C., Muisyo, J., Treichel, A., Green, A. M., Onaeko, K., & Beck, E. (2026). A national description of emergency medical services patient utilization patterns. Health Affairs Scholar, 4. https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxag144

Jacobs, K., Heller, N., Waheed, S., & Appel, S. (2017, February 7). Emergency Medical Services in California: Wages, Working Conditions, and Industry Profile. UC Berkeley Labor Center. http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/emergency-medical-services-in-california-wages-working-conditions-and-industry-profile/

Mansur, M., Horsley, L., & Ochsner, C. (2009 Sep 28). MAST Takeover Won’t Change Service, Officials Say. The Kansas City Star.

Melmed, G. (2022, Mar 23). Wake County increases pay for EMS employees in effort to fill jobs and retain workers. CBS 17 https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/wake-county-news/wake-county-increases-pay-for-ems-employees-in-effort-to-fill-jobs-and-retain-workers/

Overton, J., & Stout, J. (2002). System Design. In Kuehi, A. E. (Ed.) Prehospital Systems and Medical Oversight. (3rd ed. pp. 114-131) Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA). (2025). Presentation to City Council’s Public Safety Standing Committee. https://www.rva.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/Richmond%20Ambulance%20Authority.pdf

Sadler, A. & Sadler, B. (2022). (P)LUCK: Lessons We Learned for Improving Healthcare and the World. Silicon Valley Press. ISBN 9781735873183

Shah M. N. (2006). The formation of the emergency medical services system. American Journal of Public Health, 96(3), 414–423. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.048793

Stout, J. (1985). 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

Wolf, E. (2024 May 21). Fort Worth council approves switch from MedStar to fire-based EMS system. Fort Worth Report. https://fortworthreport.org/2024/05/21/fort-worth-council-approves-switch-from-medstar-to-fire-based-ems-system/

Zavadsky, M., & Wolfberg, D. (2025, February 17). Quantifying the gap between expenses and revenue for EMS services, ems1.com. https://www.ems1.com/ems-trend-report/quantifying-the-gap-between-expenses-and-revenue-for-ems-services

I collect items that may show up in the sixth edition of Fire Officer: Principles and Practice, which comes out after NFPA Standard 1020 is updated around 2030. The St. Lucie County Fire District in Florida has provided a climate survey example. The fire district employs 523 firefighters operating out of 19 fire stations. Three Battalion Chiefs and a Deputy Chief on duty for each shift. 2025 Annual Report.

Fire Station 1 at Fort Pierce is the busiest station, with the 8 employees responding to 11,044 incidents in 2025 while staffing an engine and two rescue (ALS ambulance) trucks. The department responded to 71,203 incidents.

Severe Hazing Results in 3 Terminated and 2 Suspended

Senior firefighters, including acting supervisors, severely hazed rookie firefighter/paramedics at Station 1A, including using a modified bug zapper to administer shocks in 2024. The fire district obtained the videos in March 2026. The 17-page media advisory released by the fire district on July 18th provides extensive details and can be accessed through this link.

In-Station Behavior

The law firm that conducted the investigation included the July 2025 Susan Gainey Workplace Culture Analysis. Those findings include:

• Overly aggressive banter, mockery, sarcasm, and personal questioning unrelated to job performance, including 1A firefighters asking recruits in front of a group about drug usage.
• Mocking or public correction of apprentices, which some described as humiliating or going “overboard.”
• “Light hazing,” “playing jokes,” or “horseplay” that blurs the line between camaraderie and misconduct. One employee noted that such behavior would not be accepted at other stations.
• A sentiment among multiple firefighters that certain individuals were “not welcome” unless conforming to unspoken social norms.
• An environment that is “cliquish” such that new employees or employees on short-term assignments do not feel part of the team and may feel isolated.
• More than one employee stated that 1A is composed of “cowboys” who “do their own thing.” One employee stated that he was told by someone from 1A that they “did things their way, not the department way,” suggesting that they do not follow District policies and procedures.
• Multiple employees stated that the workplace culture at 1A was not inclusive.
• Firefighters had requested transfers or expressed discomfort due to the 1A environment.
• One firefighter stated that the environment at 1A “made it tough to come to work.”
• Loyalty among existing crew members can result in the informal exclusion of newcomers.
• One firefighter reported there appeared to be favoritism or bias in advancement at 1A.

My experience on the job and as a consultant is that while the formal fire department may have a specific way or philosophy of doing things, each fire station creates its own version of “the fire department way.” Station 1A behaving like cowboys is an observation I have heard in earlier bad-outcome investigations at other jurisdictions.

The decentralized nature of fire departments makes effective emergency response, but diffuses fire headquarters directives. I spent a year as a relief Fire Lieutenant, filling C-shift vacancies in all six battalions in a department with 36 fire stations. Every station was different. The fire company commander and the battalion chief have a profound impact on crew behaviors and task competencies.

If you are a supervisor, manager, or administrator, you should read the St. Lucie County Fire District media advisory. The culture described in this report is troubling, but not unique. How would you handle it in your department?

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/