The "New" Acushnet Fire & EMS Department
 

March 2, 2010   On Monday, February 22, 2010 the Acushnet Board of Selectmen voted to formally combine the Fire / Rescue Department with the EMS Department.  As of that date we are officially known as the “Acushnet Fire and EMS Department”. Months of hard work went into bringing the department to this point.  Since July 2008 when the Selectmen appointed me EMS Director, we have operated two distinct departments while at the same time moving slowly, and confidently, toward a mutual objective; the efficient and effective delivery of emergency services to the residents of – and visitors to – Acushnet, Massachusetts. We set out several goals, listed below.  Achieving these goals has been the result of teamwork at all levels: Goal #1: Shorten the time a resident has to wait for the initial arrival of a trained provider Our FF/P’s are now responding to EMS calls when: requested by the crew when mutual aid is coming into town when the duty crew has a long response time (leaving from hospital) when duty crew can not break away from a call 15% of the calls addressed by the FD in 2009 were EMS based Goal #2: Work towards the state requirement of a fully operational ALS system with 2 paramedics on duty at all times Involvement of our FF/P’s allows us to achieve state requirement of two paramedics on duty for the majority of the day at no additional expense to the Town.   A full-time Paramedic working with a part-time EMT Basic, while a Firefighter/Paramedic is on duty at the fire station meets the state requirement of 2 paramedics immediately available.  Goal #3: To have a large pool of cross-trained personnel Of the 18 EMS employees, 7 are trained as firefighters and 5 have indicated an interest in learning basic firefighting skills. EMTs already have been active at fire based calls in assisting with initial tasks until the arrival of our call and off-duty firefighters.   The department will offer FIREFIGHTER ASSISTANCE TRAINING during the Spring to interested EMS staff. Of the four fulltime firefighters, 2 are Paramedics and 1 is an EMT-Intermediate capable of responding to advanced calls. Of the 30 call firefighters, 10 are EMTs. The department will offer EMT-Basic class to interested call firefighters this Fall. Since July 2008 we have conducted several Fire & EMS based training programs drills at both departments are now open to all personnel specific drills conducted to address mutual response scenarios (auto crash with entrapment) state required EMT Basic refresher recently provided to staff and lead by Fire and EMS Department personnel   Goal #4: Streamline operations Several important steps have been taken to improve department and operational efficiencies: all EMS radio communications are now based on the FD radio frequency moving them from the Police Department frequency which is shared with surrounding police departments   local EMS employees have been provided FD pagers so that they can respond to off-duty calls more effectively   hardware for paging EMS employees has been installed in the FD dispatch room so that we can assume all EMS dispatch needs at the request of the PD dispatcher (used during heavy PD radio traffic)   Career firefighter that serves as department mechanic has fixed / prevented many mechanical issues with EMS vehicles and equipment   I am personally pleased to be a member of this department during this exciting time.   I encourage all residents to watch our performance and let us know how we are doing!