By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
The two hospitals in Lincoln County have apparently found a solution to the problem of transporting patients in need of a higher-level care to and from the Willamette Valley.
After 18 months of searching, the Samaritan Health Services-affiliated hospitals announced an agreement this week with Life Flight Network to provide ground ambulance transport for patients. The service is expected to begin within 90 days.
Under the agreement, Life Flight ambulances will be based at Samaritan hospitals in Newport and Lincoln City for the sole purpose of taking patients to hospitals in Corvallis, the Willamette Valley, Portland or elsewhere. The transport can also be to nursing homes or rehabilitation centers.
The partnership does not impact the agreement that Lincoln County has with Pacific West Ambulance and South Lincoln Ambulance to respond to 9-1-1 emergency calls and transporting patients to the nearest hospital. PacWest and South Lincoln Ambulance have contracts with the county to only provide emergency response to five service areas. They are not required to transport hospital patients from the coast to the valley or elsewhere, unless they can ensure local coverage while an ambulance is out of the area for three to six hours.
Samaritan has been trying to find a quicker response to moving patients from Newport and Lincoln City into the valley.
During the pandemic, a shortage of paramedics and ambulances meant that PacWest could not always respond as promptly as Samaritan wanted. Yachats-based South Lincoln Ambulance stopped transporting patients into the valley during the pandemic and currently makes just a handful of those trips a year and only if it needs to take a patient directly to a hospital for care not available on the coast.
But if patients need a higher level of treatment at other Oregon facilities, the two local hospitals want their patients moved as fast as possible to free up space in their emergency departments or inpatient rooms.
That happens four to five times a day, according to Dr. Lesley Ogden, the hospitals’ chief executive officer.
“Patients will now have access to more timely transport which will provide increased safety for them and because patients will be moved to the right level of care faster, it will allow the hospitals to streamline care,” Ogden said in an email to YachatsNews.
Life Flight Network, founded in 1978, is a not-for-profit patient transport service providing helicopter, plane and ground ambulance transport in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. It is owned by a consortium of health care systems consisting of Oregon Health & Science University, Legacy Health, Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise and Providence Health & Services in Seattle.
Life Flight also has a helicopter stationed at the Newport Airport to airlift patients to the valley or Portland for severe emergencies. It provides ambulance transport between OHSU, Legacy and Providence facilities in Portland and between hospitals in Kennewick, Wash.
“We are excited about the expansion of service that will enhance patient care for our entire rural county,” Sam Jones, vice president of patient care services for Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital, said in a news release announcing the agreement. “PacWest and South Lincoln can focus on what they do so well – providing emergency and stabilizing care to individuals needing to come to the hospital. However, when an ambulance is used to transport a patient from one of our hospitals to a hospital in Corvallis, Portland or elsewhere in our region that leaves our county shorthanded for 9-1-1 emergency response. We feel this new collaboration between Samaritan and Life Flight Network is an excellent solution that benefits everyone.”
Ogden expects it will take 90 days to hire, train and staff the two Life Flight ambulances for around-the-clock, seven-day-a-week coverage.
Life Flight said each ambulance will be staffed with a paramedic and an emergency medical technician, requiring it to hire 17 staff before startup.
18-month search
Samaritan Health Services sought a separate patient-transport ambulance service 18 months ago to work with its two Lincoln County hospitals and its hospitals in Corvallis, Albany and Lebanon. But when it got no response, Ogden began looking for a solution for just the two Lincoln County hospitals. That led to talks with Life Flight, she said.
PacWest general manager Jeff Mathia said Ogden called him last week to let him know of Samaritan’s new contract.
“We’re surprised at this and will have to see the details and how it works as to how it will affect us,” he said.
Currently, Mathia said, PacWest handles 90 to 120 coast-to-valley transports a month for Samaritan.
If there is adequate staff, inter-facility transports can be good business for ambulance companies. PacWest has a base charge of $1,700 per call and $25 per mile. As of Oct. 1, South Lincoln will charge from $1,000 to $1,300 per call and $25 per mile. Life Flight would not detail its patient charges to YachatsNews, when asked, saying it depended on types of insurance such as Medicaid, Medicare or standard commercial policies.
The limiting factor for all ambulance companies – whether on the coast or elsewhere in Oregon – is the demand for and lack of trained paramedics or emergency medical technicians. Many left the profession during the three-year Covid-19 pandemic and companies are still struggling to hire enough personnel to staff their preferred number of ambulances.
PacWest currently has five ambulances covering a territory ranging from Otis to Waldport during the day and four at night. Mathia would like to have six ambulances during the day – and seven during the busy tourist season — and five at night.
South Lincoln has just one ambulance covering the Yachats fire district area, which can be an issue for neighboring fire districts when Yachats fire staff takes a patient to Newport or Florence and there is a fire or other emergency call in the Yachats area.
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
I think that’s wonderful, but before you spend money hiring and training you need to secure adequate housing. The central coast is severely lacking in single family, affordable homes.
I still keep my Lane County Firemed account active which includes air ambulance coverage for me and my partner for for $130 a year. Worth every penny. I am not impressed with what passes for local services around here.