Santa Barbara County has opened the bidding process for its ambulance service contract and set a September deadline for proposals.
American Medical Response, the current county provider, and the Santa Barbara County Fire Department are expected to submit bids for the contract.
This is the first time the county has held a public bidding process for the ambulance service. The request for proposals, or RFP, outlines the goals of clinical outcomes and response times for emergency medical care and transportation.
“Since faster response times are not generally associated with better patient care, the RFP focuses on the triple aim approach — patient experience, population health and reducing system cost,” said Jackie Ruiz, spokeswoman for the county Public Health Department.
“At the end of the day when it comes to the RFP, our goal is really not who is providing the service, but how well they’re doing it,” Dr. Daniel Shepherd, medical director of the county’s Emergency Medical Services, said during a Board of Supervisors meeting in May.
“I think that’s really what we’re concerned with.”
The request for proposals includes response time requirements for different types of calls, from potentially life-threatening emergency responses to nonemergency transportation between medical facilities. Faster response times are required for urban areas than rural and wilderness response areas.
The number of AMR emergency medical responses has been declining since 2016 with 27,841 calls in 2020, according to the county.
The county plans to review contract proposals in October and start negotiations with a chosen provider in November. A contract will be presented to the Board of Supervisors in March and go into effect on March 1, 2024.
The new ambulance services contract comes as the county is also consolidating its fire and emergency medical services dispatch to one location, at the Emergency Operations Center near Santa Barbara.
“Once operational, it is expected that all EMS calls for service (regardless of origination point) will be transferred to the new Regional Fire Communications Center to provide emergency medical dispatch services for all EMS-related calls within the county,” the RFP says.
“It is also expected that the contractor will enter into contract negotiations with the county Fire Department to manage unit deployment, 9-1-1-call prioritization ad dispatch, and pre-arrival instructions.”
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.