City of Erick

PROJECT PURPOSE

The project would be for the purchase of a new ambulance. This ambulance would replace a 1998 Ford van currently responding as Beckham 46. This ambulance would be equipped with up-to-date technology allowing the crew improved safety when responding to emergency medical calls in Erick EMS response area, a 305 sq. mile super rural area which the includes not only the town of Erick but also Sweetwater, Texola and Delhi. Due to the size of our coverage area, we incur a tremendous amount of wear and tear on our trucks and this unit we intend to replace has had a rough last couple of years through pandemic life. We as an agency have been taxed to capacity as well. This project would help to ease that burden with the addition of a power load cot system to reduce the exposure to back injury. It would also include upgraded lighting with LED, a warning light as well and driving lights. Most importantly upgraded lights for patient care. We would also see upgrades to our electronics and with today's rising costs we would benefit from substantially improved fuel mileage. In all, the project would include upgrades over 20 years in EMS changes and would give the patient we treat 20 years of vehicle safety advancements.

EVIDENCE

Countless crash tests have been completed in the 20+ years since the truck we use was built. In 1998, air bags were not standard for anything other then the driver and now, standard is multiple air bags in multiple locations covering multiple angles. The same goes for traction control, roll over protection, side impact and the list goes on.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Erick EMS is classified as super rural by Medicare. Super rural means that our median income is lower than average. Couple that with an extremely large per capita elderly population and you have the making of a perfect storm for COVID impacts. We witnessed both our elderly and our lower income patients hit hard and early by the pandemic. To day we continue to deal with the lasting chronic effects of the virus, with increased calls for difficulty breathing as well as people who are oxygen dependent who have issues with reliable home oxygen during adverse weather. There is no end in site for these patients. We also make inter-facility transfers which continue to grow longer and more frequent. Reliability issues are a huge concern with increased mileage for the type of calls.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

The first performance number we will look at is down time, be it for maintenance, which is a huge issue because parts are obsolete for the age of this truck or for issues related to state compliance which has moved ahead 20+ years. The next performance measure to consider is the maintenance expense, a number that should fall to near zero for the first 3 years because of warranty. As for programmatic data, we will obtain that through reporting metrics all ready in place from both our patient care reports and also from local demographics compiled for the city government.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

One-time project will not need continued funding