Effective January 1, 2016, the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (District) became the exclusive operator of emergency ambulance service within exclusive operating areas I, II, and V in Contra Costa County. The District effectively provides emergency ambulance service through a subcontract with American Medical Response West (AMR). Under the subcontract with AMR, the District provides ambulance dispatching services. The goal in having one consolidated dispatch center for both fire and EMS calls was to reduce call processing time and, therefore, total response time for emergency incidents. Additionally, for assuming the responsibility for ambulance dispatch, the District received a discount in the ambulance unit hour rate charged by AMR under the subcontract. In effect, the unit hour rate was discounted by a pro rata hourly amount that represented AMR’s estimated annual cost to dispatch ambulance units.
The transition from AMR dispatchers to District dispatchers was planned for January 1, 2016 (to coincide with the District assuming the role of exclusive ambulance operator). However, as the Board may recall, the dispatch transition was delayed from January 1 to February 1, 2016. Consequently, AMR continued to dispatch ambulance resources out of its Sacramento Communications Center on behalf of the District during the month of January 2016.
The requested purchase order payment compensates AMR for its cost of providing dispatching services during January 2016. Effective February 1, 2016, dispatching of ambulance units was fully transitioned to the District.
The District will not be able to compensate AMR for providing ambulance dispatching services during the month of January 2016.