Study shows ambulance demand on rise as area growth continues
Houston Healthcare’s new head of emergency services has promised to bring at least one new ambulance to the southern end of Houston County.
Dave Borghelli, who manages the company’s ambulance fleet, said that the new ambulance will probably operate out of the Houston Lake Med-Stop on Ga. 127, which already has an existing shelter for the ambulance and staff. But that won’t run until Houston Healthcare can hire three new paramedics and three EMTs to man it, a process Borghelli said could take six months.
Borghelli said that the ambulance will cost Houston Healthcare between $400,000 and $450,000, including the cost of buying the ambulance, outfitting it with new equipment, and hiring the paramedics and EMTs to man it. Keeping the ambulance running 24 hours per day, seven days per week is expected to cost between $300,000 and $350,000 every year subsequent, just in personnel costs alone.
“That’s the price of doing business,” Borghelli said. “We’re concerned about the ambulance service we’re providing, and we’ll have to absorb that cost.”
Mary Jane Kinnas, Houston Healthcare’s director of marketing and community relations, said the average ambulance trip costs patients around $500. This year alone, Houston Healthcare has generated some $3,496,680 in gross revenue through October, but those figures are cut drastically by the costs of indigent care, salaries and operating expenses. Due to a late-summer fuel price spike in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Borghelli is projecting that the EMS service’s fuel costs will swell around $2,000 over budget.
But Borghelli is expecting to recover those costs as Perry and the south end of the county continues to grow. Some 6,500 residential lots are currently under development. Mike Beecham, Perry’s community planner, said that the city has annexed an average of 516 acres every year for the past five years, and more than 900 acres in the past two years. In 2003 alone, the city annexed 1,084 acres, including the 494-acre Houston Springs resort community near the Airport Road Extension. Just last week, developers revealed plans to turn 425 along Moss Oaks Road into a resort community, with homes ranging in price from $150,000 to $300,000.
Borghelli’s pledge comes after an in-house study of the county’s ambulance service revealed what many have known already, that the number of emergency calls have grown steadily over the years. Borghelli said that he studied ambulance service for a 20-week period from May to October. “We did what’s called an ambulance demand analysis,” Borghelli said. “It’s very clear to us that we need extra units in the south county, specifically Perry.”
Borghelli said that call volume has grown countywide, but only one of Houston Healthcare’s six emergency vehicles is posted in the south end of the county, at the Perry Hospital. Three are posted in Warner Robins, including one at the Houston Medical Center on Watson Boulevard, another at Watson and Houston Road, and another at Russell Parkway and Moody Road. Although these three are posted in the north, Borghelli said they can be called to the south end of the county if needed. After basing his study on variables including the time of day and the day of the week, Borghelli said he found trends in the level of service in different areas of the county.
Houston Healthcare’s ambulances have logged close to 1 million miles since 2001. Emergency calls in the north end of the county have risen from 2,612 calls in 2001 to 3,525 calls projected through the end of this year. Emergency calls in the south end of the county have risen from 900 in 2001 to 1,053 projected through the end of this year. In both the south and north, non-emergency calls, such as transporting patients to area hospitals from nursing homes, make up a larger portion of their call volume.
“When you look at our response times for emergency calls across the board,” he said, “it normally takes us around a minute longer to reach a call in the south end of the county, no matter what type of call we’re responding to.”
Borghelli said that trend has been consistent over a five-year period. Borghelli said that buying the new ambulance will take less time than staffing it.
“It’s going to take us some time to find the qualified people we need,” he said. “We’re looking for the best people for the job.”
Borghelli was hired in early October. With 17 years in the industry, Borghelli said he is qualified to make decisions on how ambulance service works in Houston County.
“That’s exactly what they hired me to do,” he said. Houston Healthcare transports an average of 1,200 patients per month, with some 50,000 patients treated in the ER per year in Warner Robins and another 12,000 to 13,000 per year in Perry.
Houston Healthcare is a total health care system spread throughout the county, including the Houston Medical Center on Watson Boulevard in Warner Robins, the Perry Hospital, the Houston Heart Institute and the Houston Health Pavilion. Houston Healthcare is not supported by tax dollars, with a budget of $326.1 million for 2005. The company has provided ambulance services for Houston County since 1990.
