Second Time in Three Years: Platte Valley Named Colorado`s 2007 Ambulance Service of Year

When you list the features you would expect to encounter in the headquarters of a model EMS provider, crowded little offices full of aging furniture probably wouldn't come to mind. Chances are, you'd also be surprised to see a three-inch hole worn in the middle of the carpet on the floor of the chief's office.

But if you understand EMS, you wouldn't be fooled by those features of Brighton, CO's tiny Platte Valley Ambulance Service. Not considering that its garage bays are full of spotless, well-maintained ambulances, those ambulances are full of modern equipment, and that equipment is in the hands of professional, friendly, experienced people who do a lot more than respond to emergency calls.

Ambulance Service of the Year is an annual award in Colorado, honoring an ambulance service that has "become a leader in patient care, medical control, quality assurance, public education, public access and training and education"1. It's co-sponsored by the State Department of Health and the EMS Association of Colorado (EMSAC). Prior to last Friday, Platte Valley also won the award in 2005.

Despite its small size (33 full-and part-time employees, 5,000 calls per year), Platte Valley secured grants that provided two local police departments and four fire departments with a total of 18 AEDs (and recently upgraded them all). They have provided annual emergency medical training for the nursing staffs of 13 local schools, and they are engaged in four ongoing research projects at the time of this writing. Three of the agency's paramedics and one of its EMTs teach EMS topics regularly in local junior colleges. Four have been published in two national EMS journals, and two have taught at regional, state or national conferences. They also offer six monthly CE classes for the Greater Brighton Fire Protection District.

Platte Valley is a nonprofit, hospital-based service subsidized by community-owned Platte Valley Medical Center. They depend on the hospital's support, because Brighton is a poor service area whose underinsured population pays less than 32 per cent of its ambulance bills -- many of which are simply written off.

Paramedics work closely with Jeanne Gray, the hospital's Social Services Coordinator, and her staff to conduct organized assessments of patients' home environments. The goal of those assessments is to prevent trauma and protect patients from neglect or abuse. Past assessments have prompted everything from intervention in suspected child or elder abuse to documentation of neglect by nursing homes, and even return visits by crews at no cost to install safety railings for elderly residents.

Part-time Platte Valley paramedic Chris Hendricks developed his own 36-point matrix-based assessment tool called the PEAT Scale (Physical Environment Assessment Tool). Platte Valley paramedics, Brighton firefighters and Platte Valley Medical Center's social workers jointly use PEAT as the basis for evaluating a patient's home environment, anytime 911 crews respond to a private residence. (A return visit is called a Re-PEAT.) This tool was originally described in EMS Magazine in November 2004.

Platte Valley Ambulance is CAAS-accredited, and all of its crews are Nationally Registered. EMTs audit ACLS and PALS classes every two years, start their own IVs and read their own ECGs.

1https://emsac.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=24