Caroline County honored with VACO award for EMS drug-kit transition

Caroline County’s Department of Fire and Rescue received a 2025 Virginia Association of Counties (VACO) Achievement Award for a program that restructured how emergency medical services handle and dispense prescription medications, county officials said during the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.

The Board read and adopted a resolution recognizing the department’s EMS drug kit transition program, which county documents say was implemented Oct. 23, 2024, to meet new requirements announced by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in early 2023. The resolution credited FireEMS Chief Jason Loftus and staff for building a county-managed “hub-and-spoke” dispensing system that allowed local EMS units to continue carrying required controlled medications after hospitals stopped exchanging prefilled kits.

County officials and VACO representatives said the change was both complex and time-sensitive. Jeremy Bennett, director of intergovernmental affairs at VACO, presented the award and told the board the program met the judges’ criteria for innovation, intergovernmental cooperation and a model local-government approach. “This program meets all of those criteria,” Bennett said at the meeting. The county’s entry was selected from a competitive statewide pool of submissions.

Chief Loftus accepted the award on behalf of the county and told the board the shift required collaboration across county departments. He credited the county’s public works and IT departments for adapting access controls and camera wiring, the sheriff’s office for providing alarm monitoring required by the Board of Pharmacy, and the building official for converting county space into a licensed pharmacy area. He also thanked staff whose work prepared the award application.

The board’s resolution described the DEA’s 2023 changes to the Drug Supply Chain Security Act as “profound and immensely impactful,” and said many Virginia EMS agencies faced the same operational challenges. The county’s approach — putting in equipment, training, policies and automation to dispense medications locally — was described as the factor that led other larger jurisdictions to visit Caroline County for guidance.

The recognition is ceremonial; the board did not take additional funding action during the meeting. County staff said the program had required internal reassignments and capital and IT setup to meet both state pharmacy regulations and DEA-derived requirements.

County officials said the award highlights a broader point: smaller jurisdictions sometimes can implement practical, compliance-driven solutions quickly when multiple departments collaborate. The Board thanked Chief Loftus and the Fire and Rescue staff and recorded the resolution in the meeting minutes.