01-07-2019 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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WS — Item 5 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item Date: January 7, 2019 To: City Council From: John Swenson, Public Safety Director Re: Ambulance Primary Service Area — Legislative Change Background The Minnesota Emergency Medical Services Regulatory Board (EMSRB) was created by the Minnesota Legislature in 1995 to regulate emergency medical services in the state. As such the EMSRB oversees the assignment of Primary Service Areas (PSA) for all ambulance services in the State. The ambulance PSA that covers all of Lino Lakes is assigned to Fairview Hospital in Wyoming North Memorial Ambulance continues to provide ambulance service to Lino Lakes through a contract with Fairview. This contract has been reviewed twice in the past 4 years by Fairview with no changes in the ambulance provider, with the current contract due to be reviewed in June of 2019. It should be noted that when this contract was reviewed by Fairview no input was solicited from local jurisdictions nor is there any requirements for such input. This failure to require local approval in ambulance PSAs creates the potential for significant changes to emergency services provided to communities with no local input. The Lino Lakes Public Safety Department responds to all medical calls for service in Lino Lakes and provides emergency medical services in partnership with our ambulance provider. As a result of this collaborative partnership any changes to the emergency medical system would have an impact to the services provided. For example, if the ambulance provider reduced the number of ambulances providing services to this area the response time for ambulance service would increase. This increase in ambulance response times would require our staff to spend more time on medical calls for service and require a higher level of care provided. If this scenario were to occur it would have a budgetary impact for the Lino Lakes community. In order to proactively address this, staff has drafted a resolution seeking a legislative change that would require local jurisdiction approval for changes to ambulance PSA. This proposed legislative change reflects the collaborative nature of our current emergency medical services system and safeguards local jurisdictions from potential changes in ambulance service and subsequent budgetary impacts.