For the second year in a row, Fishers Fire and Emergency Services was recognized as the Advanced Life Support Provider of the Year in the state of Indiana.
The award was presented at the Indiana Emergency Response Conference on Sept. 15.
Advanced life support is the level of care paramedics respond with at emergencies. What makes paramedics different than emergency medical technicians is the ability to start IV’s, administer medicines, use cardiac monitors, diffibulators and more, while an EMT is limited to certain practices.
Emergency Services Division Chief Steve Davison said the award is owed to the culmination of the department’s level of provided service, its constant search to increase it and the willingness to partner with other entities in the community to offer Fishers a higher level of service.
FFD is currently in the process of partnering with IU Health Saxony with the goal being to do just that.
According to Davison, living quarters and a new ambulance garage are in construction at the hospital. IU Health Saxony will cover the tab for the new living space and the ambulance, a Fishers paramedic and emergency medical technician will staff it all year, resulting in greater service for people in Saxony.
“The most important part is that we better treat the patients in the Fishers area,” IU Health North President and CEO Jon Goble said.
Goble said response times and coordination will improve through the partnership.
The cooperative relationship between the town and IU Health Saxony begins in December, once construction is completed.
Davison said every firefighter in FFD is a certified EMT and the department typically provides a paramedic’s service on response vehicles, meaning a paramedic station on fire trucks or an ambulance responds to emergency situations with them.
Four paramedics were recently hired, bringing the town’s numbers up to 33 with another two more to be hired in October.
“To meet the ever changing challenges of providing pre-hospital critical care in a timely and cost effective manner, we must continuously improve,” Fishers Fire and Emergency Services Chief Steve Orusa said in a press release. “This partnership will make a difference in our life-saving capability and may become a best practice.”