American Ambulance Association Honors AMR With Two AMBYs

American Medical Response will receive two AMBY Awards on November 5 at the American Ambulance Association’s Annual Conference and Trade Show Awards Reception in Nashville. AMR will receive AMBYs in the Employee Program and Community Impact Program categories.

AMR in Buffalo, New York, was recognized for the Earn While You Learn program, which started in September 2018. Born from a need to recruit qualified EMTs, the goal was to attract, hire and train 50 individuals. Since the first program, AMR has held four academies and graduated more than 100 students. The Earn While You Learn Academy is an 11-week program, where students are paid to attend EMT school.

The program’s success in Buffalo has created Earn While You Learn academies in Springfield, Mass., St. Louis, Mo., and Dayton, Ohio.

AMR in Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire, was honored for its Community Impact program—a unique community response to the growing opioid epidemic. Safe Station was created to give people 24/7 rapid access to one-on-one resources for individuals requesting treatment, counseling or coaching for substance use disorders in the community. All Manchester and Nashua fire houses are safe havens, where people struggling with addiction can receive immediate assistance. Short-term goals included decreasing deaths from opioid overdoses. It continues to work. Manchester Safe Station participants were 86 percent less likely to experience a fatal overdose after entering Safe Stations compared to before entry into Safe Stations; and Nashua Safe Station participants were 89 percent less likely to experience a fatal overdose after entering Safe Stations compared to before entry into Safe Stations.

Overall, more than 7,000 people have accessed the two programs since they began in 2016. 

Ted Van Horne, COO of Global Medical Response, said he is proud of the AMR programs honored by the American Ambulance Association. 

“These are just two of the many examples of where we focus on the communities we serve with innovative solutions. Our local operations in Buffalo, Manchester and Nashua developed programs that are now being instituted across the United States to better serve our own employees and patients.”